


Sing to Me, O Solomon

by Lywinis



Series: Swords and Serpents: An Ineffable Husbands Collection [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, because each chapter can stand on its own, triggers addressed in notes at the beginning of each chapter, tumblr prompted, various character studies, you'll want to subscribe as I add things without marking the fic incomplete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-05-02 01:29:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 35,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19189150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lywinis/pseuds/Lywinis
Summary: "As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
    so is my beloved among the young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
    and his fruit was sweet to my taste."A collection of Ineffable Husbands drabbles, generated via prompt on tumblr. Ratings vary.





	1. Verdant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bearfeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearfeathers/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley hates being laughed at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Crowley wearing a crown of plant trimmings to further terrify his plants much to Aziraphael's amusement.

Crowley scowled at Aziraphale, who was not succeeding at hiding his smile behind a rather nice glass of ‘62 Dalmore.

“What.” His voice held more than its usual irritation with the angel, but only because Crowley didn’t appreciate being laughed at, and it seemed like he was the object of Aziraphale’s mirth at this moment.

“You’ve got a bit of…” Aziraphale reached toward him, and while it was strange, the pull Crowley felt, he didn’t let it show on his face. The brush of fingers against his ear made his skin crawl, down his spine and toward his toes – the barest flicker of…something.

The angel plucked a sliver of greenery from behind Crowley’s ear; if he’d been on his toes, he might have snarked something about his sleight of hand getting better.

As it was, he was not on his toes, because the sight of the wilted greenery just made embarrassment coil itself into his guts and he pushed his glasses further up his nose.

“Did you get into a fight with a shrubbery?” Aziraphale asked, eyebrows raising in that innocent, guileless way he had; it begged Crowley to tell him the truth.

“No,” Crowley hissed, indignant. “I was making an example.”

“What?” Aziraphale blinked.

“The hedges around the new flat were looking dull, so I decided to get them going,” Crowley said, cutting his eyes to the side. While his glasses hid the movement, it was also likely that Aziraphale could tell he had done so – it was a wash, as far as avoidance tactics went. “Wearing the corpse of one of their friends. Intimidation tactics.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, his eyebrows lifting as he studied the sprig of greenery in his hand. After a moment, Crowley felt that whisper of power that accompanied a miracle done in close proximity; Aziraphale was subtle, like the barest breath of wind, rustling the trees.

The greenery bloomed in his fingers. The angel tucked it again behind Crowley’s ear, the brush of his fingers electric.

Crowley blamed the post-miracle moment, rather than admit to…whatever it was that he was experiencing.

“Much better,” Aziraphale said, sounding satisfied.

“What?” Crowley asked, feeling the softness of flower petals against his temple.

“For intimidation,” Aziraphale replied, very seriously. “You now look like you took one of their own in its prime. Much more frightening.”

Crowley poured himself another finger of the Dalmore. He was far too sober for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, unfinished WIPs everywhere and I'm back on my Good Omens bullshit.
> 
> Guess who binged the _entire series_ yesterday and spent all of tonight doodling requests?


	2. Charybdis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listening was never Crowley's strong suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Crowley and Aziraphale in the war between the forces of Heaven and Hell 2.0

“Not again,” Crowley said, his long and lanky form crammed against a telephone box, buffeted by a divine wind. “It’s been less than half a century!”

“Someone’s skimped on their paperwork,” Aziraphale agreed, his golden locks whipped by the same wind. “They’ve mustered incredibly quickly.”

They were sheltering from the unnatural storm, humans around them clinging to whatever they could to avoid being swept away, seeking shelter wherever they could.

“They’ll be out for us,” Crowley said, the scream of the wind, carrying a rather unhappy cow in its wake, drowning him out.

“Do you think so?” Aziraphale shouted. Fire belched from the street, sending a manhole sixty feet in the air, only for it to be whipped away by the wind.

“After what happened last time, how couldn’t they?” Crowley said.

Aziraphale reached for him, and his manicured fingers found Crowley’s, linking and squeezing. Resolve in place, Crowley nodded.

“What shall we do?” his angel asked.

“Whatever we have to, in order to get out of this in one piece,” Crowley replied. “It’s us versus them.”

“Heaven and Hell versus Humanity,” Aziraphale said.

“Satan knows they’ll need the help,” Crowley said.

“Before things get too–” Aziraphale fell quiet, which was rare when he was in a froth. “Before–”

“What?” Crowley said, squinting at him, as though that would make him easier to hear over the shriek of the wind.

“Before we–”

The phone box behind them groaned as it was ripped from its concrete moorings, soaring into the air to join the rest of the detritus.

“We need to get moving!” Crowley shouted over the redoubled howl of the wind.

Aziraphale nodded, whatever he was going to say lost in the moment as they ran for cover and to plan their next move.

It wasn’t important, anyway.

At least, Crowley didn’t think it was.


	3. Ineffable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He really didn't know what he should have expected. Help? Unlikely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Crowley, being saddled with the antichrist, runs to the angel on his speed dial

“Crowley, I can barely hear you!” Aziraphale huffed as he waved a hand, righting the wall of books that three customers – three! the nerve! – had mussed in their perusal.

Thankfully, no one had chosen to purchase anything – and the thought of that nearly had his dander up, but instead he attempted to focus on the shouting demon trying to be heard over the wail of Queen and the wail of…

…was that a child?

“–my way to–”

“Crowley?” The static on the line was ridiculous, and Aziraphale had no doubt Crowley had forgotten the mess he’d made of the mobile networks tonight, all for a little extra karma from downstairs.

The line cut out, and he sighed, hanging the receiver on the cradle.

Well, whatever happened, there was always later. He could catch up with whatever scheme Crowley had gotten up to later. It wasn’t the end of the world, after all.

* * *

“…oh, dear,” Aziraphale said, his bright blue eyes focused on the babe in the basket. “Well, he certainly doesn’t take after his father, does he?”

“This is hardly the time for jokes,” Crowley hissed at him in agitation. “I was due to drop it off at the Chattering Order of St. Beryl in an hour. If I’m late, they’ll flay me alive, at the very least.”

“Well, you can’t exactly hand deliver them the Antichrist,” Aziraphale said, pursing his lips at the thought.

“I have to,” Crowley replied. “It’s my job.”

Aziraphale did have to concede that point. For a moment, it appeared he’d forgotten they were on opposite sides.

“I suppose that this is the end of everything, then,” he said. He peered around his book shop, as though cataloging its contents one last time. His gaze was sad, but resigned.

Crowley sneered. “You’re just going to roll over, just like that?”

“What else shall I do? The End Times are ineffable,” he said.

“You could kill it,” Crowley said. “That would be a major victory for yours. Interception of a lifetime, that.”

Aziraphale looked scandalized. “I’m not going to _kill_ a human child!”

“Half.”

“What?”

“He’s half human, angel. You can justify it.”

“Maybe _you_ can.” Aziraphale sniffed, his pride stung.

“Fine,” Crowley snapped, snatching the basket off the table. The babe inside began to cry, and he closed the cover on it once more. “I’ll handle it myself.”


	4. Fear Not!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, perhaps a _little fear_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Aziraphale dealing with unwanted customers or mafia wanting something in his bookshop with Crowley watching. Or maybe something about spies "just browsing" and trying to leave messages for their counterparts.

**[1975]**

“Can I help you?” The angel’s tone was definitely lacking its usual warmth. Crowley perked immediately; whatever was happening, it was bound to be rather entertaining.

The angel seemed to have mastered popping up right behind a customer exactly when it wasn’t wanted, pestering them with a sense of good grace that more often than not meant that he lost more custom than he sold.

This was, of course, just fine with the angel, who was more akin to a dragon lining its den with gold than a shopkeep looking to make a living wage. It was not, however, fine with the gentleman who was perusing the stack of books, a copy of  _Signet of Royal Arch Masonry: A Complete Guide to Capitular and Cryptic Masonry_ in his hand.

“Gah!” Aziraphale just cocked his head, giving a polite but rather pointed blink at the man in the green woolen overcoat. “I was just–”

“Writing in the margins of a second printing of a rather rare book,” Aziraphale said. Crowley was surprised his breath wasn’t visible in the air, with the way the angel’s tone dipped below friendly into the waters of icy disapproval.

The man was sweating bullets. “I–”

“You’re also sliding slips of paper into the others, as though you aren’t the most obvious thing in the world here,” Aziraphale continued. Crowley’s hearing was excellent, so he heard just fine what everyone else would discern as a murmur.

The man began to back away. Aziraphale’s hand shot out, clenching around the man’s wrist in an iron grip, his smile taking on a sharp, slicing edge.

“Apologize.”

“S-s-orry,” the man said, eyes darting nervously around the shop.

“Not. To. Me.” The angel’s gaze slid to the book and then back to the man’s terrified gaze.

“S-sorry,” the man gasped in the direction of the worn leather cover. Aziraphale released his wrist, and the man backed up a step.

“Leave,” Aziraphale commanded. “Leave, and never return.”

If he’d done so well at the Eastern Wall of Eden, Crowley might not have ever befriended him. Instead, as he watched the terrified would-be spy bolt for the door, the bell overhead jangling raucously, Crowley realized something rather…terrible.

That had been absolutely amazing to watch. Appealing. He sorted those emotions away for later examination as Aziraphale returned to their lounging area, the book clutched in his well-manicured hands.

“Poor thing,” Aziraphale said, running his hand lovingly over the leather cover, letting it linger. Crowley felt the hair on his nape stand on end, and wasn’t sure if it was the minor miracle Aziraphale performed, repairing the book to its found condition, or attraction.

He swallowed, trying to feign interest in anything but the display of power that had made his wings ruffle outward, wanting to drink in more of that.

Aziraphale turned to him with a smile.

“What were we talking about, my dear?”

“…haven’t the foggiest,” Crowley replied, faintly.


	5. Edelweiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heaven has terrible taste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Why does Aziraphale dislike The Sound of Music?

“I don’t dislike it, as such–”

“You made a face like someone over-browned your crepe,” Crowley pointed out.

“It’s just…there’s so many better musicals to share–”

“Not from composers in Heaven,” Crowley pointed out, his finger lazily rolling toward the ceiling. “They’re all ours.”

His finger rolled downward, to accentuate his point.

Aziraphale’s hands did that little dance they did when the angel was agitated. Crowley could feel victory in the argument at hand, and he pressed his luck.

“Of course, you do get a choice. The Sound of Music, South Pacific, ooh, Oklahoma!” He offered the news in a voice full of faux cheer, watching the color slowly fade from Aziraphale’s rather rosy cheeks. “Anything you’d like to watch, just so long as it’s Rodgers and bloody Hammerstein.”

“No!” Aziraphale blurted. “It’s so saccharine, and so…long. The righteous anger at the Nazis bit I can get behind but–at least give us Phantom of the Opera!”

Crowley gave a dark chuckle. “Never. Took that one down myself. Angel, you’ve not got a prayer up there.”

Aziraphale’s face twisted in dislike. “Well, I…I suppose I don’t have to watch the musicals.”

“No more books that aren’t approved, either. All pristine copies of what they have, though, no need to hunt for them.” Aziraphale leaned backward, slowly, frowning. “You think it’s a good idea, I know you do. Angel, work with me on this.”

Aziraphale blew out an exasperated breath.

“Fine. Just this once.”

Crowley didn’t mention that  _just this once_  had been done more than a handful of times over the last century alone. He reached out and shook the angel’s hand, feeling the giddy buzz of victory spinning through his veins.


	6. Temptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Feelings._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tawghasa – “ Void prompt: angels are beings of wuv “

Aziraphale went very still.

If Crowley hadn’t been used to all of the angel’s tics and quirks over the centuries, he might have been moved to ask, but he knew better. Aziraphale was opening his senses, tuning himself into something that only he could sense.

Angels were beings crafted of pure love. Demons, of course, were fallen angels, which meant that the love they’d been made of was twisted to suit some dark purpose. If you asked Crowley, he might go off onto a tangent about how sickly sweet an angel’s aura was, like spun sugar crammed into a sucker punch to the gut – at least for a demon – but now, he simply sat next to the angel on the park bench, watching as he tuned his celestial radar in on something.

Or someone.

“Did you feel–” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “My apologies. You wouldn’t have.”

“Feel what?” Crowley asked. It wasn’t laced with irritation, not yet.

“There was an incredible burst of love close by. Quite extraordinary in its depth. Like it’s been hidden away in a wine cellar. Maturing. For years.” Aziraphale cocked his head, sitting a little straighter. “It might have been the most natural feeling in the world, if I hadn’t felt it just then, while you were talking about that bit…um, what was it?”

“A new restaurant just opening round the corner,” Crowley supplied. “Doing interesting things with lamb, or so I heard.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said. He kept his head tilted, much like a pointer at heel, doing what he did best. “There it is again.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Angel,” Crowley said, smoothing his palms down his knees. “Leave them be.”

“Oh, I just wanted to congratulate them,” Aziraphale sighed. “On having such a level of devotion. I’ve never seen it before. It was…I wish you could have felt it.”

Crowley shrugged. “Leave it. They’ll figure it out.”

“Oh, they already have,” Aziraphale said, his voice soft. Filled with longing. It was almost painful, the way he said it, as though he expected something like that for himself.

“…care for a spot of supper?” Crowley asked, his voice taking on a hunted edge. Distracting the angel was sometimes a chore.

“…in a moment, Crowley.” Crowley leaned back, rolling his head back on his shoulders as he gazed up at the cloud filled sky. The sun was setting, painting them a lurid orange and red.

He turned his head to regard his companion. His eyes were closed, opening his senses to the love he was feeling, drinking it in. A spectator.

Much like Crowley himself.

Crowley softened, with Aziraphale’s eyes closed. He could allow himself this. Studying the angel’s features, the way his lashes fanned out over his cheek, how his mouth slightly parted, his hands clasped earnestly in his lap.

Aziraphale sat back with the smallest sigh, releasing his form of the tension that had built inside.

“Extraordinary,” he said; the word was like a caress, sliding from his lips in a wistful breath. He turned to look at Crowley, who schooled his expression into one of bored indifference.

“Supper?” Crowley said.

“Oh! Yes.” Aziraphale gave a giddy pat to his thighs and rose, meaning Crowley was free to unfold his length from the bench and stand as well. “You said this place does lamb?”

“Yes,” Crowley said. “But we’ll go wherever you please.”

Aziraphale gave him a sharp look, but Crowley avoided it, striding past him in a single, long step.

“Coming?” he asked, flippantly, over his shoulder.


	7. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Call and answer. Crowley never realized when he began to be at the Angel's beck and call. He doesn't mind...often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt-
> 
> Ineffable Husbands: put the fear of god in me

"If you don't think of something, then..." Aziraphale cast about him, looking around at the quaking earth, the humans attempting to remain upright while Death stood, impassive. "...then I'll never talk to you again."

Crowley mustered every last scrap of power he could, his eyes fading from their more normal sheen into something entirely reptilian as he wound up and  _pushed_.

And time ground achingly to a halt.

The shudder that rippled through the fabric of reality was likely felt throughout Creation, but Crowley couldn't care about that now. Time was Inexorable, much more powerful than something that was Ineffable, and one couldn't skirt by Time for long. He was holding onto the whole thing by the tips of his long and rather clever fingers, but he knew that they needed this moment with Adam. Just a moment, stolen from its rightful owners to implant just the smallest seed of wisdom, right next to the flowering shoot of rebellion that was growing in Adam's soul.

It was unravelling him at the seams, but Aziraphale needed it -- and Crowley was never one to deny the angel anything.

He kept the strain of it from the angel's notice, knowing he would need to focus on the Antichrist, to keep him on the path he'd chosen, rather than the path he'd been set upon.

Crowley would hold until he gave out, and then a few seconds more, simply because Aziraphale asked him to do so.

Thankfully, he didn't have to hold it long.

* * *

"We did it," Aziraphale said, once Adam had been gathered up by his father and the rest of the humans had dispersed.

Being weary was a new feeling, part of the whole unholy host that had been circling him since he'd strode from the flaming bookshop. He nodded, quiet, and sank onto the bus stop bench.

Aziraphale noticed, then.

"Are you well, my dear?" The angel sat beside him, his hands fluttering against the fabric of his trouser's thighs, as though wanting to soothe whatever was bothering him, plucking at the material and straightening it in a rhythmic motion. But there was hesitation, there.

Fear.

The same fear that had gripped Crowley for so, so long.

"Tired," Crowley rasped. "I'll need some rest after that."

"We can...try," Aziraphale said. "They'll be after us, now."

"They will," he agreed, rubbing his hand over his face. "It's not them I'm afraid of, though."

"Then what are you afraid of?" Aziraphale asked.

_This. You. Feelings. You. Losing all of it. **You.**_

Crowley said nothing. The delivery van interrupted the train of thought, and when Aziraphale was back in the mindframe of the question, Crowley had schooled his features to be more impassive.

But the fear remained.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Aziraphale said, reaching into his waistcoat pocket.


	8. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not the kind that come with sword and horn, bearing the tides of war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> Ineffable Husbands- who realized the other loved them first?

One could say that Crowley fell in love on the Eastern Wall of Eden – one could say that, but it was hardly true.

The demon Crawly had just met this being, this somewhat portly angel who’d given away a  _flaming sword_  to a pair of humans because he was worried about them. It was a move so profoundly absurd that Crowley was impressed and full of admiration for him. But he wasn’t in love.

* * *

One could say that Aziraphale fell in love that night in 1941, when in the husk of a burned out church, a demon handed him a bag of carefully protected books, still in their leather satchel. One could say that, but it was hardly true.

Angels are beings made of love, able to recognize and be drawn to something like it, basking in it when it’s found and mourning it when it’s lost. No, in the blackened timbers and crumbled stone of the church – even bombed to bits retaining holy ground that made Crowley hot foot it out of the crater – that was when Aziraphale realized that perhaps the staticky low-grade hiss of love that had been blanketing his radar was actually Crowley, orbiting him as they had been wont to do since the beginning of everything.

However, he didn’t allow it to compromise his mission. It was something to ponder, yes, but it wasn’t to change the Ineffable. Nothing could change that. They were on separate sides, there were Rules.

Things would not change. That was that, in Aziraphale’s opinion.

No, they never realized they were in love with the other – not until much later.

* * *

Crowley’s realization came borne in fire, with the fluttering, blackened pages of hundreds of years of manuscripts curling to ash around his skin. He only kept his corporeal form because his imagination believed Aziraphale was inside somewhere, stuck in the place he loved the best – and Crowley had certainly felt that love, buzzing below his skin like a low-grade fever, sliding over his skin like a physical presence – but when the angel was nowhere to be found, when he realized they’d stolen him…

Crowley felt the hole all the way to his core, and all he could do was force himself to his feet. They’d stolen his best friend, and all thoughts of leaving evaporated like the water being used to fight the roaring blaze. There was no point in running, in escaping, if there was no one to run with – a thought that most demons would eschew because their modus operandi is always to look out for number one.

Crowley was always different, in that way. There had been two on his watch list, for longer than he could remember now, and he wasn’t at the top.

* * *

It was fitting, then, that Aziraphale’s revelation came with the sound of water filling a filthy bathtub. Michael stood, the decanter in their hand pouring an endless stream of holy water out, filling the receptacle like the holy spirit entering a room. Aziraphale didn’t swallow, didn’t fidget, keeping the ruse up as he glanced around with Crowley’s eyes, taking in how things actually operated down here.

He’d never actually been. He hadn’t actually been sure what he’d expected.

The hissing and jeering demons behind the glass, Beelzebub sitting impassive on their throne, flies buzzing about them. Hastur, his black eyes greedily passing between ‘Crowley’ and the bathtub, as though he’d waited his entire existence to shove the other demon into the water, to watch him hiss and bubble away with a scream, gone forever.

Michael, their face impassive, save for that little, knowing smile. Would they know? He wasn’t sure. It added something to the whole thing, it made his wings shiver and curl, made him ache to burst free for the sunlight, to make for the long forgotten corner of the Garden and redo everything – redo it right.

Imagine how much more marvelous it would have been to be competent. But then, he might never have met Crowley. He might never have loved him at all.

That was what it was, it was love he felt for his oldest and only friend – and he was his best friend, Aziraphale realized. They’d chosen each other instead of choosing sides, over and over and over for six thousand years. In the end that had made all the difference. It was Right. It was…maybe it was part of the Plan, after all.

If he hadn’t agreed to this, they’d be gone. Both of them.

Things had Changed. Aziraphale among them.

They’d bet that Hell would be too ready for revenge to think he’d swap, and they’d bet that Heaven would be too arrogant to really check if it was an angel they were punishing. They’d never really bothered to learn about him, regardless.

Well, Hell was about to learn about him, and Crowley. And he was going to give them what for.

Aziraphale tilted his head at the now-full tub, pursing his lips.

“A request?” he asked, hearing it in Crowley’s voice. A comfort, in one of their hardest trials. “This is a new jacket. Can I take it off?”

* * *

Later, listening to Crowley chuckle about the rubber duck bit, Aziraphale smiled to himself. It really was rather funny, and that was enough.

It could wait a while, perhaps, to ask Crowley the question he really wanted the answer to – now, they’d made enough time to last them the rest of forever, the rest of their lives.

Now, however, it was time for lunch.


	9. Maintenance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snakes shed; apparently, so does Crowley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> costofthecrown asked:
> 
> Other ways Crowley's snake nature reveals itself?

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called. He’d checked the usual places, but it seemed like the demon had disappeared. It had taken a couple of months to carefully nose around, even though Aziraphale had been long used to the idea that Heaven didn’t much care what he did, so long as his paperwork was in order.

Couldn’t be seen consorting with the Enemy, after all.

He tried the door to Crowley’s flat, surprised when the knob turned and deposited him on the demon’s front hall mat. He closed the door behind him, turning the locks.

“Crowley?” he tried again.

“–away.” Crowley’s voice was muffled, and Aziraphale moved toward it, through the suspiciously clean and uncluttered flat, past row upon row of trembling houseplants. He found the kitchen, clean and clear of anything that resembled cooking utensils, an office, and finally, the bedroom.

It was as though a sauna blasted him in the face. He blinked, the hot and steamy air making his own golden-white curls wilt a little.

“Crowley, my dear boy. Where are you?”

He spotted him then, and just as quickly averted his eyes. Crowley was on his back, in the middle of the bed, the sheets rucked down and kicked to the foot as the demon writhed. Black patches of scaly skin dotted his usual pale musculature and he raged, turning and tossing as he rubbed himself against the bed.

Completely nude, his wings the only thing blocking his modesty, and even then only by chance as the demon scrubbed himself against the mattress.

“I said…go away, angel,” Crowley snapped, his wings flapping in irritation as he scraped at his back.

“You’re…peeling,” Aziraphale said, mildly.

“I’m shedding,” he hissed, arching his back and pushing back with his heels, scrabbling at the patchy black masses of scales on his back. “Doesn’t happen often, but…well. What do you want?”

His voice was resigned, as though he’d known that Aziraphale wasn’t about to be deterred.

“Can I help?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley stopped his frenzied dance, staring at Aziraphale mid-gyration, his hips in the air and his expression incredulous. Perhaps it was because Aziraphale was looking at anything but him, his eyes fixed firmly on the wall behind Crowley.

“You want to help?” Crowley’s voice wasn’t that of a being that was convinced Aziraphale was asking to do something he wanted to do.

“If I can. I know how hard it must be to get at the…bits on the back, even with a rubbery spine like yours,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Please.”

Crowley sat up, wings rustling in agitation, but he at least curled his legs tailor-style and leaned his elbows on his thighs.

“…go on, then,” he said.

Aziraphale kept his eyes averted, even as he crept around behind the sweep of Crowley’s wings, settling himself between them, right in front of the demon’s spine.

Here, it was worse, with long strips of patchy black scales that Crowley hadn’t managed to scrape free. The scales were going dull as Aziraphale watched, flaking at the corners and revealing fresh, new skin beneath.

Carefully, he reached out, working his manicured fingers beneath a particularly flaky spot under Crowley’s shoulder blade, peeling it gently away. The scales dropped away, revealing more of the fresh, new skin beneath it. Crowley sighed, giving a small hum of relieved pleasure.

Aziraphale felt his feathers ruffle at the sound. That was a being content, like a good grooming that was long needed. He set to work, paying special attention to Crowley’s spine and neck, places that he might not be able to reach, even with his long arms and terribly clever fingers.

They fell silent, enjoying the give and take of being involved in something like this. Time seemed to stretch out, slowing as Aziraphale tended to his friend’s need. There was no need to rest; the angel would not tire, and the demon was more patient than Aziraphale would normally accredit to him.

Soon, the mass of dried scales was free, and Crowley sighed in obvious relief, leaning into Aziraphale’s hands as he finally cleared the last of the skin from Crowley’s back.

“Better?” Aziraphale asked, absolutely not letting his hands linger, his palms splayed across Crowley’s back.

“Mm,” Crowley said, his voice a purr. “That’s usually more uncomfortable…alone, I mean.”

“Then I’m glad I was able to assist.” Aziraphale’s voice was cheerful. “All freshly, erm, peeled.”

“And just like that, my gratitude is gone,” Crowley huffed. There was no edge to the grumbling, however, as Crowley rose and moved to his dresser. If Aziraphale had to label it, he might choose the word ‘fond’.

Aziraphale rose as well, snapping his fingers and clearing the scales away. It seemed right to tidy up the mess he’d made and distract himself from Crowley wiggling into whatever new pair of leather trousers he’d bought for himself. He made for the door, only to stop at the demon’s voice.

“Can I tempt you to a spot of lunch?” he asked. Aziraphale turned. Crowley was half-dressed, a black silk shirt dangling from his long fingers as he looked after Aziraphale. “My treat?”

It was the closest to 'thank you’ Crowley would ever get.

Aziraphale tilted his head, thoughtful. “…temptation accomplished.”

“Meet you at the usual?” Crowley asked.

“Ah, of course.” What had he been thinking, that they’d walk there together, enjoying the sights? This was a clandestine friendship. Where had he gotten the idea that they were free to do…anything.

He cleared his throat, giving Crowley a small smile, and made his way to the door.

“I’ll meet you there.”

He slipped out, taking a roundabout way to make sure he wasn’t followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phrase 'freshly peeled snek' makes me giggle every time. I wanted to do something a bit different with the prompt of a 'snake' nature for Crowley. He doesn't shed often, but it's bloody annoying when he does.


	10. Starstuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He hung the stars, once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> What do you think Crowley's job was in heaven before the Fall?

He hung the stars, once.

Long before he Fell, before he became the Demon Crawly, long before he even considered it an option, Crowley carefully swirled matter into its penultimate form, simple but breathtaking. He shaped them, giving some gaseous nebulae to rest in, giving others lonely existences as he scattered them about the cosmos, forming patterns both conscious and unconscious with long-fingered hands, spread wide to expand the galaxies to where they Must go, cupped close around smaller stars who still needed a little help to get going.

His breath brought forth galaxies, spinning in infinity, and it was good.

His favorite was Sol. It wasn’t all his, but the Almighty always did outsource these things, and the star came to fruition from Her plan and his careful, steady hands. It illuminated this world that She had sought to create, to fill with creatures big and small, given to Her beloved humans, created in Her image.

Sometimes, he dreams about them.

Let there be light.

So easy to snap his fingers and turn them off. At least, at first.

Now, he simply looks. He drives out to Tadfield sometimes, specifically because Adam has willed it to have the least light pollution in the whole British Isles, if not the whole world. At night, the stars creep out over the hills, rolling forth like a blanket of twinkling fireflies.

Crowley parks by the edge of the forest, leans his long and sinuous form against the warm, ticking engine of the Bentley, and watches his creations flicker across the sky. Sometimes he smokes, the coal at the end of his cigarette another bright flicker in a sea of infinite points of light.

He created beauty, once.

Now, he simply looks.


	11. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turn, turn, turn. The world moves on. Surprisingly, so does Crowley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles asked:
> 
> Ineffable Husbands: post-Omens, the first time they held hands

It is not the first time they’ve clutched each other’s hands. Humanity went through phases where apparent male affection was welcomed, if not celebrated. They always seemed to ‘go native’, as it were.

Now, however, masculinity has turned toxic. Now, men held hands in cases of romance, nothing more. Shaking hands was a power move, where one attempted to grapple with the opponent to claim dominance.

Crowley almost misses wrestling, the old fashioned way, in that sense. At least there was no pretense about one’s motives there.

It’s a sunny day in May, the sun having crept out from behind the clouds at half-past nine in the morning, long before Crowley had chosen to get up. Spring made people more likely to be open to good influence, so he tended to save his larger annoyances for when the summer heat baked their brains in their skulls, making tempers short and easier to influence.

He let Aziraphale have the spring. It was the least he could do. It balanced things out, in his opinion.

For every thing, there is a season, and all that.

However, this is the first time that they have strolled through the park since the A-botch-alypse, the first time since they’d celebrated at the Ritz. They’d both had much to do, righting their affairs, dismantling things that didn’t need mantling, not with their conjoined renegade status from their respective sides.

Those sides are no longer theirs. They have Their side, he and his angel. It is on the side of humanity, though humanity will never know, save the Them and their leader, and a certain witch and her Witchfinder husband in Tadfield. Perhaps a Witchfinder Sergeant and his newly reformed fortune teller as well, but they keep their secrets just as the children do.

Pinky swear.

It is Their side. They built it, and they intend to keep it.

Their meetings are no longer clandestine, though they still gravitate to St. James’s Park. Old habits die hard, after all, and Crowley even has a favorite bench. Aziraphale prefers the ice cream, and even Crowley has been known to indulge in the ice lollies, now and then.

The sun is nice for basking, and Crowley allows himself that, closing his eyes and tipping his head back, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Aziraphale isn’t late; Crowley is early, taking advantage of the sun and listening to the crowds of walking people pass him by, the swell of humanity the sweetest sort of white noise.

“You’re early,” comes the voice. Crowley opens one eye, lazily turning his head to see Aziraphale standing there, ice cream in hand. He’s brought Crowley an ice lolly, clutched in his other hand.

“I’ve got nowhere to be,” Crowley said, giving in and offering the angel a lazy smile, one actually filled with particular good humor. Aziraphale nudges him with his foot, and Crowley slides over, having saved the bench for him.

Dutifully, he accepts the ice lolly, nibbling it as they watch the people go by.

“Do you know, I rather relish that?” Aziraphale says after a long moment. Crowley blinks, something he rarely does, and turns his head to look at his companion. “Having nowhere to be.”

Crowley chuckles. “Me, too.”

“Should we make it a regular occurence?” Aziraphale asks. “Doing Nothing, I mean.”

Crowley considers this. “Doesn’t it lose its appeal if it’s scheduled?”

He thinks so; it appears that the thought hadn’t occurred to the angel.

“Perhaps it does,” Aziraphale concedes.

“How about this,” Crowley says, after they subside into their own thoughts for a moment. “How about, whenever the mood strikes you to do Nothing, you call on me, and we’ll do it together.”

“…I rather like the idea of that, my dear boy,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley doesn’t bother to hide his pleased grin.

Their ice cream finished, there’s naught to do. Which is fine by them, even as they rise and begin a stately stroll around the park. Here, under the shade of the trees and on the well manicured paths, they first started meeting. Save for going back to the Garden, it’s the closest thing they have to a beginning, as old as they are.

Spring means the flowers are in bloom, and lovers walk the park. It was never something that Crowley had envisioned for himself, but as he breathes in the fresh air in the first month of the rest of their lives, he finds himself still feeling hollow.

Was it a demonic affectation, this hunger? To covet? He had no idea. It made little sense, in the grand scheme of things. It is here, though, scooping out the contentment and replacing it with an ache.

He is turned so inward, that he almost doesn’t feel the press of the angel’s soft hand against his own.

Manicured nails, an almost plump set of fingers, they twine with his own, long and almost spindly. Aziraphale squeezes, and he feels his breath leave him.

Not that he needs to breathe.

It is the first time, in a long time, that they’ve held hands. But it’s different.

Perhaps it’s the nature of thwarting Armageddon. Perhaps it’s just spring in the air. Perhaps it is wishful thinking from a being who’s been on just enough of the wrong side of the fence to make a difference.

“Crowley?” his companion asks.

The plush slide of fingers against his skin is almost painful, in the way that he wants to drink in the sensation like a fine wine. Aziraphale’s fingers slide away after their brief press, and Crowley retains enough of his senses to capture the angel’s pinky, in the crook of his own, bringing their knuckles together, pressing his thumb to the pad of Aziraphale’s own.

They leave no fingerprints – angels and demons have none – but there is a mark there, nonetheless. Crowley feels branded by it.

The hunger has changed. It has a point of reference, a beat that thrums with the pulse point of the universe, the being that walks beside him is its locus and its objective.

“Crowley?”

_You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows._

Crowley gathers himself, this staggering throughput of knowledge has left him quite dizzy. Not nearly as dizzy as stopping Time, but close.

“Yes, angel?”

“I rather like doing Nothing, when it is with you.”

Their pinkies remain linked, their strides slowed to match the other, Crowley shortening his steps to keep in time with his angel.

“Me too.” He tries not to sound as though the revelation of a simple touch has flayed him from the inside out, but with how Aziraphale keeps their pinkies entertwined, he’s not sure he’s succeeded.

It doesn’t matter.

It’s another first, another beginning.

Pinky swear.


	12. Soft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale isn’t soft. He’s just enough of a bastard to be likable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> The void keeps thinking about Aziraphale saying "I'm- I'm soft" to himself after dealing with heaven and would be delighted to know what you have to say about it

If you were to tell Crowley that Aziraphale was soft, perhaps he would agree with you.

On the surface.

Aziraphale is soft in demeanor; his looks are full of joy when he delights in something. Those are Crowley’s favorite, that soft smile or a gasp of delight from the angel when Crowley surprises him with words or an action – it’s his very favorite.

He’s soft in appearance, too. Golden-white curls, doe-like hazel eyes, a well-fed appearance. Aziraphale is known to indulge, and that’s partially what makes him so appealing.

(Crowley has to admit that pointing Rubens in Aziraphale’s direction was the best idea he’d had that century.)

He’s got the body of a nobleman from the middle ages; somewhere along the way he decided that was attractive and rolled with it. And true, it’s appealing.

Up until the modern age, being soft at the edges was a sign of refinement, of wealth and excess. People are drawn to Aziraphale – he’s sensual in a way that seems to be missing, these days. Pleasures of the flesh never ever really needed to mean carnal. Silks and satins, good meat and rich gravy, sweets and wine. Books instead of plows, a soft seat. It cultivated in the angel a shape that is curved to Crowley’s sharp edges, another way in which they differ.

But Aziraphale isn’t soft.

Not in the way that Heaven means, nor in the way that Aziraphale himself means. Crowley has watched Aziraphale for over six millenia. He has never had a connection with anyone quite like he has with this being before him, with his white-blond hair curling softly, just tousled enough to make Crowley want to right it with his own treacherous fingers, to wind them in and pull. Tilt his head back and sup at the curve of his throat, lave it with his tongue, press his sharp, sharp teeth just to the pulse and threaten with a bite.

He would be dead on the spot, he has no doubt. But back to the matter at hand.

Aziraphale is argumentative, petulant, devious. He’s tricked Crowley into conceding more miracles by far; even capable of doing the exact same things, Crowley is sure that their count is lopsided in Aziraphale’s favor.

He’s indulged in almost all of the seven sins to the point where it’s a wonder he didn’t Fall in the first place. Crowley has never seen an angel bend and twist to stay just on the inside of the rules as hard as Aziraphale. Coveting and eating and drinking.

Crowley would be proud, if he’d had a hand in it at all.

Aziraphale isn’t soft. He’s just enough of a bastard to be likable.

It would just take quite a bit of effort for Crowley to admit it aloud.

* * *

Aziraphale would probably never hear Crowley’s reasoning, at least not spoken by Crowley himself.

But it wouldn’t stop him from insisting that he was, indeed, soft. He could have, in fact, done any number of things to keep Crowley away.

The Eastern Wall had been where it all started. When the Garden of Eden had finally been placed by the Almighty, where he guarded the wall with the other Principalities, the instruction received was that he was to watch over the nascent garden until he was relieved.

While rumors believe that angels are tireless beings, angels given bodies are hardly automatons. They still must rest – if only to decompress.

Aziraphale’s relief never came. There was no one to swap his duty with, to lay his burden down.

An oversight by the head office, perhaps, the first of many. Though Aziraphale had never had reason to think of it as such, he was becoming weary.

Or, more accurately, he was becoming bored.

So, he sought companionship, if he could. He traded words with the other angels, but they all swapped places often enough that he wondered if his relief had been lost in the shuffle. But the Man and the Woman, made in the Almighty’s image – they were kind and often brought fruit and seeds, sharing with him as he sat upon the wall.

It was only natural that he thought it unfair they be banished. Without so much as a stick to defend themselves, and with her expecting. He felt pity. It was unfair, he thought, to turn them out into the world barehanded, with nothing so much to take with them, not even food.

It was more than pity, it was heartbreak.

“Surely there must be something to be done about it,” he mused to Gabriel.

“It’s adorable that you think that.” Gabriel sniffed, turning his impossibly violet eyes to the horizon, his hands folded in front of him. “We’re not gonna make them a goodie bag and send them prepared into the new world. The Almighty gave them one rule, and they broke it.”

He’d always spoken thus, as though Aziraphale should know better than to ask these questions, or that he should already know the accepted answer.

“Not even coverings, or shelter?”

“What part of ‘cast out’ do you not understand?” Gabriel said, his impossibly perfect voice dulled by the introduction of sarcasm. “Just do your job and guard the wall. They’ll be out by daybreak.”

“I was meaning to ask about that–”

But Gabriel was gone long before Aziraphale could ask about his break. But being alone on the Eastern Wall had given him plenty of time to ponder. To question.

Being left to his own devices had made him…think.

It seemed unconscionably cruel to turn the humans loose with all the creatures big and small without a means to defend themselves. All for questioning and daring to learn the difference.

If God would not protect them, and he couldn’t protect them, then at least he could help them protect themselves. So it was that Aziraphale curled Adam’s hand around the hilt of his sword, looked him in the eye and told him to run, to take Eve and go forth and multiply, to be safe.

It was then that he lied; not outright, but circuitous, avoiding the question of where, exactly, that sword was. He’d have to account for it later, surely, but for now, it was where it needed to be, not where it was supposed to be.

A final gesture of love from a God who couldn’t – or wouldn’t – show it.

Not long after, Crawly had appeared. Aziraphale had no doubt that he’d been the orchestration of the whole kerfuffle. It wasn’t as though that wasn’t obvious. He was a demon.

“A demon can get into real trouble, doing the right thing.” He nudged the angel. “Funny if we both got it wrong, eh? Funny if I did the good thing and you did the bad one, eh?”

“Not really,” said Aziraphale.

But even as it started to rain, he lifted his wing, giving the demon shelter beneath it. His words had been kind, though perhaps laced with temptation; they were on opposite sides, after all. But no one had spoken to him quite like Crowley had. With admiration for his actions, as outlandish as they might have been.

It could have ended there. But Aziraphale is soft.

It was only natural that he should fall in love with the smallest bit of good in a demon, build it up, nurture it. Fall in love with the demon himself.

He’d always appended himself A. Z. Fell. He always smiled at the double meaning, but then, he’d always loved the written word and its complexity.

And so he and Crowley orbited each other, their miracles canceling each other out. Perfectly balanced on the razor’s edge of the scale, and ne'er to meet in the middle.

Because compromise is a human trait. And a funny thing happens to angels, and to demons, when they inhabit corporeal forms for over six millennia. More often than not, they tend to take on the traits of those they’re influencing, whether they like it or not.

Heavenly love is often spoken of, but never really witnessed. Human love, the messy and bloody, heartwrenching and whiteknuckled flinging of two people together, keeping them there through fights and good times, through celebrations and endings. It’s a human trait.

It brings forth compassion.

It begets more love than it takes.

His cup runneth over, and it’s exactly what was needed when Adam was untethered, running wild towards the End of the World – but it was Crowley who spoke first.

Aziraphale let him. Let him take the lead, let him cultivate that spark of love inside himself, because despite his attitude, Crowley was indeed fond of humans.

And Aziraphale is fond of Crowley.

Love begets love begets love and in six millenia, all of Aziraphale’s love can be distilled into a demon – one who did not fall as far as he thought, and who rose to meet him.

It was far gentler for Aziraphale to fall in love than to Fall. A much softer fate for him, one he wishes he could have given Crowley instead.

But changing it wouldn’t make it work. They might never have met at all.

Let him be soft.

Softness saved the world.


	13. Gethsemane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 
>       _I only want to say
>     If there is a way
>     Take this cup away from me
>     For I don't want to taste its poison
>     Feel it burn me, I have changed
>     I'm not as sure as when we started
>     
>     Then I was inspired
>     Now I'm sad and tired
>     Listen, surely I've exceeded expectations?
>     Tried for three years, seems like thirty
>     Could you ask as much from any other man?_
>     
> 
> Crowley is late. Usually, that wouldn't worry Aziraphale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles said:  
> Ineffable Husbands: I'm just lookin' for a dear, dear friend of mine / I'm waiting for my man / Here he comes, he's all dressed in black / Beat up shoes and a big straw hat / He's never early, he's always late / First thing you learn is you always gotta wait I'm waiting for my man

**[1941, three months after the incident in the cathedral.]**

Crowley was almost never on time. That was something Aziraphale had become used to in his acquaintanceship with the demon. It was as though he eschewed all rules, not just his own, arriving precisely when he meant to – and usually precisely when it would annoy Aziraphale the most.

He tried not to think on it too hard, instead breathing in the cool night air. It was tinged with the smell of smoke and burnt brick, scorched timbers rising over the skyline like skeletal fingers, but it was cool. That would have to do.

It was half past eight, the thick fingers of night creeping over the city as mandatory darkness swept through London. The sound of planes was on the edge of one’s subconscious, even for the angel, and he frowned, looking up at the starry sky. Would the Luftwaffe blot out the small pinpricks of light again tonight?

The bombings had become unpredictable, Hitler’s forces wearing themselves down against the staunch British cheerfulness that propelled them through the war. Even Aziraphale was weary, the smoke and death wearing his mortal form thin. He was sick to death of war.

That was partially what this was about. His botched attempt to lead the Fuhrer astray from his horrible plans meant that Heaven was losing this conflict. He’d not heard from the others stationed throughout France and Germany, or even Switzerland, but he was quite sure there was a reason for such radio silence.

Even as inured to violence as angels were, surely they couldn’t be immune to such horrific sights day by day, month by month. If he was as heartsick as he was, surely even a being like Gabriel might take pity, though he rarely walked the earth anymore.

It was another reason to contact the demon; he had a feeling that this wasn’t Hell’s doing. Sure, some demon might take credit for the conflict – and that demon might even be Crowley – but it was rare that demons pulled this off on a global scale. Influence was a tricky thing; one had to believe that the choice was theirs, because it was.

Aziraphale wanted to meet with Crowley to see about teaming up to end the war. Or at least, slow it down.

The first hour had him looking at his pocket watch and sighing.

The second hour had him peering through the dark with a frown.

The third hour had him marching back into the city proper to drag Crowley out of whatever hole he was hiding in. They rarely met, both being busy with the war effort on either side (not to mention botched spy activities, he thought with the tiniest wrinkle of his brow at himself). He could go months or years without seeing Crowley.

If he were honest, that was another thing. This time he’d been worried and had pushed up the next meeting.

He didn’t think Crowley had realized he was limping. Likely the hot foot had hurt more than he’d anticipated. It was compassion that caused Aziraphale to reach out.

Truly, it was.

He hurried down the avenue, avoiding the stones with preternatural grace, his sensible shoes scuffling along the crumbling pavement. He missed his oxfords, but the buttery leather had no place in war-torn London, and he’d opted for being sensible rather than fashionable, at least until this dreadful business was over.

Crowley was quite a chore to find on the best of days. While Aziraphale had his shop – at least, while the war hadn’t been on, now it was disguised in the rubble of the street and tucked away where it couldn’t be gotten at – out in the open, Crowley holed up and disappeared.

Needs’ must, of course. The righteous must be a beacon of all that’s good and upright, and that meant out in plain sight. Evil tended to hide its head from the light of day.

Thankfully, Aziraphale considered himself a bit of an expert on finding this singular specimen, and he got himself toward the tube as fast as he could, avoiding the eyes of the patrol with a little bit of prestidigitation. Thankfully, he knew better than to bother with the crowded shelters, heading for the collapsed Balham station. Still unrepaired from the bomb that had struck the street above, the station was closed, the lights out like the rest of the city.

Aziraphale had a hunch. He stepped lightly down the stairs, passing through the locked gates, picking his way through the rubble. They’d managed to clear goodly swathes of the crumbled infrastructure, but he was looking for…ah.

An access door, almost hidden off the tracks, up and out of reach of the flooding. That was what he was looking for.

He sniffed.

While he didn’t have as good a nose as the demon he was looking for, he knew exactly what he happened to be seeking, which was a large help. Under the wet, musty smell of the tube itself, the scent wafting out of the access door was familiar.

New leather, good earthy greenhouses, the hint of a campfire. There was also the scent of engine oil, very faint. Crowley had bought a car, a strikingly terrifying automobile – he’d been proud of it, showing it off to Aziraphale when he’d taken him back to his corner of London.

Crowley loved that car (as much as any demon can love anything), and drove far too fast for the war torn streets. Neither car nor owner seemed to care.

Aziraphale touched the lock, felt the tumblers turn beneath his angelic caress, and pushed the door open.

Crowley looked up from his rather plush looking chair as Aziraphale stepped into his well-appointed apartment. Fine leather seating, wood floors, carved stone walls, all of it screamed high rise apartment, all of it was buried in the walls of the Tube.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded, brows drawing low over his sunglasses.

“You missed the meeting.” Aziraphale shrugged. It seemed rude to take his coat off so readily in the abode of his erstwhile enemy.

“Yes, well, I had things to do.” Crowley sniffed. “Totter on then, Angel, there’ll be bombs tonight.”

“Well, then I ought to stay here, oughtn’t I?” Aziraphale said. “You’ve carved out this cosy nook for yourself, and it’s safer deep underground.”

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Crowley hurled himself to his feet, only to hiss an expletive as his knees gave out. He collapsed onto the waxed wood floor, the dull thud of his body echoing in the cavernous apartment.

Aziraphale saw then that the demon’s feet were bare, wrapped in gauze that was now weeping red against the elegant arches of Crowley’s feet.

“You’re hurt.” Aziraphale said, starting forward.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. The angel stopped, dithering half a dozen paces away. “Just…just go.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said. “Let me help.”

“Are you deaf from the raids?” Crowley said, mustering enough willpower to pull himself back into his overstuffed chair. “Must be. I told you to get out.”

“Cr–”

“ ** _No!_** ” His pale fists clenched on the good leather of the chair. Aziraphale could just see the long fingers spasm, delicate knuckles moving beneath the porcelain of his hands. “Stop it. Go home.”

Aziraphale drew himself up to his full height. His wings belled from behind him, his primaries brushing the walls as he glared at Crowley, a righteous tizzy pressing Crowley back into his seat.

A tense moment of staring became a tense moment of silence, then a tense moment of contemplation.

“Let me do this. I owe you for the books.”

“You don’t owe me shit, Angel.”

“Oh,  _do_  hush, Crowley.” Aziraphale tucked his wings away, smoothing his feathers as he did so. He shuffled forward, manifesting a small copper basin, which he set near the fireplace. It was burning without smoke, without wood, so it was all right, he reasoned.

“It’s not hellfire,” Crowley said, at his hesitation. His voice was quiet, almost thoughtful.

“I know,” Aziraphale said. How he knew, he couldn’t say.

He decided not to dwell on it.

He summoned some water, set it to heating, and went about summoning the rest of what he’d need. The foot bath was hardly a new invention, but it was something that would ease the pain in the demon’s feet.

It had been the floor of the cathedral. He’d been hopping about as though he was on hot sand, but Aziraphale had seen Crowley walk across hot sand with barely a whisper. (He may or may not have watched Crowley leave before the floods, and Eden before that.)

Carefully, he stripped the bloodied bandages from Crowley’s feet. They were nice feet, he thought, his toes elegant, long and well-formed, like his fingers. His arches were delicate, sculpted. There were no blisters or callouses on his feet, his skin just as pale here as the rest of him. Delicate veins like skeins of color in marble, and Aziraphale traced them with his gaze.

Very well made, for an angel. Fallen. He corrected himself, turning Crowley’s foot this way and that. Fallen angel.  ** _Demon._**

And here he was about to clean his feet.

He decided not to dwell on that, either, and got to work.

Marring Crowley’s soles were large patches of bloodied skin. Holy ground, it would have seared him to the bone, and wouldn’t be miracled away.

And yet he’d willingly gone into the church for him. To help. Aziraphale swallowed and poured the steaming water into a wooden trough he’d summoned for him to work with.

He scraped the acacia nuts, grinding them into a fine powder, his fingers going dark as he added them to the water.

“This might sting,” he said softly.

Crowley was silent, though he could feel the demon watching him, his face inscrutable with the glasses on. Aziraphale carefully set one foot into the cooling water, carefully letting the tannins soak into Crowley’s feet. An old remedy, as old as time, and it was one of the only ways to treat these burns. They would fester otherwise.

Crowley remained silent, even as he allowed Aziraphale to manipulate his legs as he willed. The angel carefully wiped away the blood, watching Crowley’s toes curl when he hit a particularly painful spot.

It must be torturous, yet Crowley seemed more intent on watching Aziraphale than making noises of discomfort. It made the hair on the back of his nape stand straight up, as though he were back on the wall, watching the rain and lightning lash the desert, striking the sand and turning it glassy with the Almighty’s anguish after Adam and Eve fled.

Lotion of wine and myrrh, summoned from Israel. It was Important, and he snapped his fingers to bring them to him, without question of the power it would cost him this month, or the questions it would raise Upstairs.

It was Important.

Carefully, he pulled one foot at a time from the bath and dried them; he anointed them in honey, myrrh, and wine, wrapping each one in clean gauze.

Carefully, he manifested a fluffy carpet square beneath Crowley’s feet, setting them down and leaning back on his heels.

Carefully, he avoided the demon’s gaze.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said.

His name, his True Name, startled him, and he looked up. Crowley’s glasses were gone, his lambent yellow eyes fixed on Aziraphale’s face, pupils blown wide.

It was said so softly, with such tenderness. It made him ache. It made him…

It filled him with such sadness, he thought it would fill him up and tear a chasm in him. Angels loved, indiscriminately, in that way the Almighty did. Crowley was…

He was…

Aziraphale didn’t know. Knowing would mean that he himself was Known, laid bare beneath the gaze that burned like twin stars in the firelight. Something in his eyes called to the wildness of Aziraphale’s core, and it…

It frightened him. He shouldn’t.

He couldn’t.

It wouldn’t have been right. At the same time, he knew it would have felt like coming home. How he knew, he couldn’t say.

He rose to his feet, the movement jerky, as though he were a marionette desperately trying to continue to move with half its strings cut. He snapped his fingers to clean up his mess.

“I’ll leave you be now, Crowley,” he said. He smoothed down his waistcoat, biting his lip and looking anywhere but at Crowley’s naked gaze. “Buck up, you’ll be right as rain soon enough.”

“I–” Crowley started. Aziraphale didn’t let him finish, didn’t let him fill the silence with tempting, pretty words that he was so desperate to hear.

He took his leave, hurrying from the tunnel and all but running for his bookshop.

There were no bombs that night. The silence weighed on Aziraphale like a yoke about his neck. It would be his penance.


	14. Slow Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 
>       _I woke up in a Soho doorway
>     A policeman knew my name
>     He said you can go sleep at home tonight
>     If you can get up and walk away
>     
>     I staggered back to the underground
>     And the breeze blew back my hair
>     I remember throwin' punches around
>     And preachin' from my chair_
>     
> 
> 1967.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles asked:
> 
> Ineffable Husbands: Here we go again / I thought that you were my friend. / Here we go again / I thought that you were my friend. / How does it feel, to be loved?

**[Soho, 1967]**

“I know what you’re doing,” Aziraphale said, his voice quiet under the patter of the rain that ticked off the parked Bentley.

Crowley repressed the urge to shrug, to move at all under the concerned hazel eyes. “Do you?”

“I hear things, you know. That you’re planning a…a caper.”

Crowley frowned at the term, preferring a more grown up phrase. Now was not the time for semantics, however. Not when Aziraphale was looking at him like this was a Serious Matter.

Because it was.

Crowley needed what he was attempting to get. It wasn’t a joke, nor was it a lark. It was insurance, the most painful kind. He’d known that Hastur was gearing up to make a run at him; it was only a matter of time, after all. If he could take down Crowley, get him punished, get his spot, he could wreak all sorts of havoc up top. Ligur would go along with him just to see Crowley in discomfort, if not pain.

Not to mention what they’d do to Aziraphale.

He bared his teeth a little unconsciously at the thought, which Aziraphale took to mean that he disapproved of his phrasing.

“I’d really rather you didn’t, you know,” Aziraphale said. “It’s too dangerous, Crowley. Holy water won’t just kill your body. It will destroy you completely.”

His voice was still that soft, gentle tone. Crowley hated the way the pity flowed from the angel’s lips. It slithered down his spine, making him feel like he was still crawling on his belly through the sand.

He’d determined he was done crawling for anyone.

“You’ve already told me what you think, 105 years ago,” Crowley said, unable to keep the peevishness from his tone.

The argument in the park still stung, even a century later. It was the worst he’d felt in millenia – he’d slept the whole time away. He couldn’t bear to think on it more. But here he was, throwing it in Aziraphale’s teeth.

He still had plenty to say on the matter, after all.

“And I  _haven’t_  changed my mind,” Aziraphale replied testily. “But I can’t have you risking your life. Not even for something so dangerous.”

_Well, it’s not about what you **want** , is it? It’s not about what either of us want. We don’t get to want, to covet, to have things for  **ourselves**. Always working for the greater good. The greater evil._

That’s what Crowley would have said, if he’d had the presence of mind to say anything, but he was presented with a thermos. A cute little thing, very Aziraphale, it was patterned in a light blue and cream plaid; it was very in keeping with the earthly items Aziraphale tended to gravitate towards. In fact, it matched his bowtie.

He took it, feeling the weight of it and knowing it was full of liquid.

“So…you can call off the heist. Don’t go unscrewing that cap,” Aziraphale said seriously.

“It’s the real thing?” he asked, his voice hushed in the car.

“The holiest.”

Crowley turned it in his hands, a wondering look on his face. The item in his hands could dissolve him in seconds flat, and it would kill him for good. A way out, if things got too bad – though not for him.

He spoke the truth to Aziraphale, it was purely insurance, not for himself. Not a suicide pill. He quite liked where he was, thank you very much.

“After everything you said?” he asked. Pushing his luck, to be sure. Aziraphale didn’t look at him. He just gave a short, sharp nod, swallowing hard. “Should I say thank you?”

“…better not,” Aziraphale said. He was still looking anywhere but at Crowley.

“I’m…glad you came around, angel,” he said. His voice was soft, even as he tucked the thermos into the cupholder that hadn’t been there a moment ago, perfectly sized to fit the Thermos and keep the dangerous liquid in check until he could squirrel it away somewhere safe.

“Yes, well, I couldn’t just let you go haring off like that,” Aziraphale muttered.

“Can I drop you anywhere?” Crowley offered, his voice softer still.

“No, no thank you.” Aziraphale glanced at him then, and Crowley realized the disappointment was naked on his face when the hazel eyes paused, lingering. Aziraphale always seemed like he saw to the heart of him. Straight through him, deep into the darkest recesses, the ones that were still scorched from the Fall.

Crowley wondered when Aziraphale would wisen up and turn away like the rest of Heaven did.

He tried to school his face into something more neutral, but Aziraphale sighed softly.

“Oh, don’t look so disappointed, my dear,” he said.  "Perhaps one day we could – oh, I don’t know – go for a picnic, or dine at the Ritz.“

Crowley’s resolve shuddered. He leaned toward the angel, micrometers that felt like a chasm.

"I’ll give you a lift,” he said, peering at him over the rims of his sunglasses. “Anywhere you want to go.”

The edge to his voice was desperate.

_Come home with me. Go with me. Anywhere you want. Whatever you need. Let me pull down the stars for you, I could do it once – I could do it again if I **tried**!_

_**Please** , Aziraphale._

There was a moment, a millisecond, where it seemed like the angel would take him up on his offer.

“…you go too fast for me, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice was filled with a bone deep sadness, the kind of sadness that threatened to stop his heart. If it had discorporated him, he might not have been surprised.

The click of the door was discordant in the quiet, letting in the rush of the London night. The Bentley filled with sound, people walking, talking, living, loving, fighting. Aziraphale shut the door with another conscientious click, and silence reigned in the Bentley once again.

Crowley wasn’t sure they were talking about his driving anymore. He stared down at the thermos, his eyes moving of their own traitorous accord to seek out the retreating form of the angel as he disappeared in the rain.

“The Ritz, huh?” he muttered to himself, setting the thermos down, careful not to even look at the cap wrong, in case it decided to unscrew itself.

The Bentley pulled away from the curb, and no one remembered it had been there at all.


	15. Selfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 
>       _I want to live, I want to give
>     I've been a miner for a heart of gold
>     It's these expressions I never give
>     That keep me searching for a heart of gold and I'm getting old_
>     
> 
> Everything is as it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles asked:
> 
> Ineffable Husbands: Temptation inside your heart

The bookshop was where it had always been.

Aziraphale stood across the street, taking it in. Settled right on the busiest corner in Soho, its antiqued front shining in the weak morning sunlight that peeked through the clouds.

The world should have ended yesterday.

Through their combined efforts, and through the sheer stubbornness of an eleven year old boy, it had not, and so Aziraphale was around to feel the light autumn breeze slide through his white-gold curls. It ruffled the lapels of his coat, dancing down the street behind him and chasing after a couple who were seriously considering unpacking their winter gear a little early.

Summer was giving way into autumn, releasing England from its warm and loving grip. The unusually warm summer months were fading from memory, as were the strange things leading up to Armageddon-That-Wasn’t. The world had moved on, as it was wont to do, now that it had confirmed it should be Getting On With Things.

Typical Libra.

Aziraphale only had eyes for his shop.

The carved pillars were a little filthy from the London air, their white fading into an almost well-loved cream color. The wood was likely soft from years and years of standing before the painted facade of the bookshop. A.Z. Fell & Co. was painted above the doors and windows, the title trailing around the corners, giving it a sense of lived in fragility – though the gold leaf hadn’t faded, not nearly as much as it should have.

Perhaps that was hubris on Aziraphale’s part. He really couldn’t say. Instead, he stepped off the curb and headed for the door, crossing the street once the motorists had decided they’d had enough of blocking his path.

Fishing his keys from his pocket, he hesitated at the door, taking in the smell of old books and worn leather that pervaded, even outside the shop for a few feet; he couldn’t say if humans could smell it, but he could.

Along with that was the accompanying scent of books and their various covers, there was the underlying scent of fresh fruit, heavy on the vine. Old ink, the kind used in calligraphy, the pen set aside for just a moment while one sought sand to dry what you’d just written. Myrrh, too; the scent would be cloying if it weren’t so faint, tinged with the barest hint of ozone, like a cloud just before a lightning strike.

He made a pretense of fumbling with his keys so he could rest his forehead against the warm red wood of the door.

It had been standing here on this corner since 1800. It was just as he remembered.

The last time he’d seen it, it had been engulfed in roaring flames.

_Aziraphale!_

He got the key in the lock and pressed the door open. There was no heat, though he remembered it on his face, no sharp licks of flames against his skin. No darkening curls of paper flickering past his eyesight as he called. No smoke obscuring his vision, making him choke as he screamed his throat raw.

_Aziraphale!_

He ran his hand over the carefully tended spines, watching the way the manicured fingers pressed against the leather just so, feeling the delicate give beneath the pad of his fingers, like the skin of a consort. His thumb rested against another, and he could feel the love placed here, buzzing under his skin like a low grade fever, over him and under him and through him, spinning into infinity.

All was as it should be.

Mostly.

The windows were intact; there was no backdraft to have blown them out, the shouts of emergency workers tinny to his ringing ears as he screamed for the only other thing in this world that made him feel even remotely whole, who made his cup overflow and his days interesting.

**_Aziraphale!_ **

He paused by the window, the antique writing desk dipped in the same fading gilt as the letters outside, comfortably groaning under the weight of more books. New spines caught his eye, much less loved and handled than the usual fare. Bright red, they stood out.

Complete and intact copies of Just William and its numerous sequels by Richard Crompton. He felt the edges of his lips curl up into a small smile. The real reason they were all here today. Adam Young had left his signature, as surely as he’d signed a painting.

“Well,” he said. His voice sounded overloud in the quiet shop, the bustle of Soho never really seeming to penetrate beyond the shop’s walls. He tried again. “Those are new.”

The sound sent a shiver down his spine, quaking in his stomach and making his feathers rustle.

He mustn’t be late; he couldn’t afford it. Yet, he lingered.

Pulling a sheet of the fool’s cap kept to jot notes or observations, he took a pen and began to write. Something short, the scratch of his pen punctuated by the ticking of a clock. After a moment, he leaned back, read what he had written, and nodded. Taking the sheet, he tucked it into the inner pocket of the waistcoat he was wearing. It wouldn’t be found there, and he needed it saved for much, much later.

He had no idea if this was going to work. There was no way to tell. It could all go to shit in a moment, a blinking. But he had to trust.

There was no side but theirs, and he was in it to win.

It was time.

He straightened, taking one last look about the shop before he started for the door.

His steps slowed.

He was a selfish being, after all, and he wanted one last thing. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Crowley,” he said, softly. It was said with the same hushed reverence as a penitent at confession. The soft, lingering notes of his voice quiet in the still air.

He tried again.

“ _Sachiel_.” His Name. Said the same way, with the quiet wonder and affection that never seemed to wane, even when he was irritating.

His True Name, from before. There were many iterations, so many. So many iterations afterward, as well, attempting to erase what Was and start anew. Struck from the records and cast out, left to saunter downward, trailing in the wake of angels who’d gone before.

He shuddered, feeling his knees lock as he forced himself to stay upright, to face it with his usual feigned nonchalance, but it almost threw him from his feet. He inhaled, not needing to breathe but needing the air all the same, hands clenched until the delicate knuckles stuck out sharply from the pleasantly plump backs of his hands.

He’d just wanted to hear it once. Just once. He might not ever hear it again, after all. If this plan failed, if they…

He gathered himself, smoothed his waistcoat with practiced strokes of his hands, fluttering the way they should now.

It was time. He needed to go.

Crowley locked the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sachiel is the archangel of freedom, benevolence and mercy, and the Patron Angel of all who forgive. (May also be written Zadkiel, which tends to be more popular.) Many, many variations of his name.
> 
> Also, I should mention that while the fic lists things as being 'completed' that's because each work may stand alone. I do a thing I like to think of as 'seeding', where I add bits and pieces that I call back to, but each fic is a complete work on its own. I just don't want to bomb the tag with 100+ individualized fics.
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely comments - I'm doing my best to reply to all of them, but I'm working 50+ hours a week so I might get lost in the shuffle a bit. You're all breathtaking, however, and I will endeavor to respond to everyone! I'm so glad everyone is enjoying.


	16. It's a Long Road Up Golgotha Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 
>       _Oh mother, tell your children
>     Not to do what I have done
>     Spend your life in sin and misery
>     In the house of the rising sun._
>     
> 
> Crowley has a bad habit of running afoul of things he really should Avoid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles asked:
> 
> Ineffable Husbands: what wondrous love is this, o my soul?

**[1986]**

Crowley liked Soho. As far as places went, it was hardly a den of iniquity, but he'd always felt that there should be some sort of decorum to one's descent into Hell. He'd seen other demons go at it slapdash, tempting with drugs and alcohol and sex, but it had all seemed rather crass, especially when one considered that humans tended to get there all on their own without outside influence.

He was hardly feeling unfulfilled at his job, however. He was secure in his spot; he hadn't been ousted in nearly six milennia. While he'd almost been discorporated a handful of times -- and actually discorporated a handful more, but he'd hung onto this body for quite a while now. There'd been no paperwork of that sort and no stretching out a new vessel, getting used to the kinks and working out how to feel comfortable in his skin again.

Humans had gotten simultaneously more and less violent. Wars were global, with bombs and protests and more bombs. The world held its breath as Russia and the US sized each other up.

The tension was something that hung over the world like a miasma, but it was hardly something anyone could do something about -- even though Heaven and Hell had been working on it. Heaven was fighting against it, whispering suggestions into ears on both sides; Hell was ramping it up, enunciating the machismo and chest beating so that someone would get angry and hit a button. Crowley stayed out of it for the most part. Bringing about the apocalypse early would put a feather in his cap, with the right words whispered in the right ears, but Crowley thought of the bigger picture.

Earth was interesting, far more so than the crowded, dank and dripping hallways of the Pit, a proper bureaucrat's wet dream with all the paperwork and queueing. No, Earth was much nicer. It had alcohol, rock and roll, good soft mattresses with duvets that felt like a caress.

Earth also had Aziraphale, and Crowley was damned glad for it.

In short, he was feeling very good about his place in the world; naturally that was when it all went to shit.

He was going out, in that way that he had when he'd had enough of telly and enough of remaining cooped up in his flat with his houseplants, but he hadn't a clue as to what he wanted to do. Drinks were likely, but he'd seen Aziraphale almost six months ago. Too early to call on him, even at the bookshop. He took a risk every time he went; that day could be the day he was found out. Best not to draw too much attention to the bookshop nestled on the busiest corner in Soho, looking less like a shop and more like part of the background, no doubt something the angel had done to discourage customers.

That was hilarious in its own way, really. Crowley never got tired of watching Aziraphale annoy people away from his book collection. Technically angels weren't supposed to own Things, but Aziraphale had never been shy of his admiration for humans and their words. Nor had he ever been shy about partaking in the physical world's pleasures, such as eating or drinking.

Crowley cursed to himself. His feet had taken him toward the bookshop regardless of his own intent. He was almost there, in fact. He needed to think of something else. Aziraphale had distracted him, and the angel wasn't even present.

That was dangerous, even moreso that he was trying to avoid whatever had been following him.

The last month or so, it had felt like he was being watched. Not in the way that Hell had, when they wanted to transmit new orders to him -- if it were that, they would have just blared it through his stereo, interrupting wherever he happened to be on the Very Best of Queen. No, this was different.

This felt like being stalked by a predator. Crowley had been stalked before; wolves in Scotland, tigers in Burma, seagulls in Melbourne. It was hardly a new thing for him, but the way it made him feel was startling in its newness. The feeling had a razor sharp edge to it, enough to make the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end.

He was in danger, he could feel it in the shudder that rippled up his spine and rattled his pinfeathers.

Whatever it was, the chance of discorporation had become rather real. All the more reason to lure whatever it was away from A.Z. Fell & Co. He swaggered past, using the reflection in the glass, making a pretense of checking his hair in the mirrored surface. (A slicked back style this decade, something just as flashy as he was, a couple strands artfully escaping to make him seem just a little more approachable.) He gave himself a rather cocky set of finger guns, another recent invention that irritated people the world over, and moved on.

He sauntered through the streets, walking in random circles. He stopped for a pint here, grabbed a packet of smokes from a side shop that was still open this time of night. He irritated a whole night club by wiggling his fingers at the DJ's equipment and putting it just out of calibration enough to be annoying.

Still, the feeling didn't fade. In fact, it only seemed to intensify, moving slowly closer. Crowley had walked nearly to Whitechapel at this point, but the feeling was still behind him, sending chills up his spine.

Clouds passed over the moon, darkening the streets a bit. Crowley ducked behind a couple of rubbish bins, making for an alley. Maybe he could lose whatever it was by taking to the air.

It wasn't to be, though. Whatever had been following him thought that stepping down the alley had been a marvelous idea, and he felt himself slammed up against the brick outer wall of a little cafe. The air rushed out of his lungs, but it was a good thing he didn't need to breathe. He snapped his fingers, reappearing a couple of feet away from this new, unknown enemy.

Well...not entirely unknown.

"Nybbas," he said, wiping at the thin stream of blood from his lower lip. "They let you out of preschool?"

"You're always so funny." Nybbas smiled. "Always with the jokes."

It didn't reassure Crowley. Nybbas's smiles were always...off. A touch too wide, a hair too long, with an eerie tilt to his head. A minor duke in hell, he was low enough on the totem pole that he shouldn't have been let up here at all, at least not without good reason.

He was plain looking, a shock of brown hair and dull brown eyes. It was when he smiled that it was...creepy. Where you could tell something was off.

"Why the warm welcome?" Crowley asked, gesturing with his bloodied fingers. A snap of his hand and he'd righted himself, but it was the way he was being studied.

Nybbas was smaller than he was, though no less strong; strength was measured in age and in how powerful you were when you Fell. Angels had certain skills you never lost, and demons squabbled over artifacts and knowledge to extend and hone those skills. Falling twisted most powers, though the general idea remained the same.

Nybbas, however, had always been an idealist. He oversaw visions, sending wonky prophecies to earth in order to keep people on their toes. Menial work in this day and age, but still.

"Well," Nybbas said, scratching at his cheek. "I was coming up for confirmation of something. And for you."

"For me?" Crowley asked. He had a bad feeling about this.

"Oh, yes," Nybbas said, smiling again. "You see, I found something, and I want to test it out."

Shit. Shit shit shit.

"Shit," Crowley breathed.

"Oh, did you know?" Nybbas's smile faded. "Well, that takes out at least half the fun of it. Hm. The other half should be all right."

He tilted his head, withdrawing something from his sleeve. Crowley squinted, until the thing caught the moonlight. A long, sharp dagger, rusted and pitted with flecks of brownish mess. Rust, perhaps -- or blood.

No. Not a dagger. It was too long, the blade too tapered. His heart started to hammer in his chest.

"So, you know what this is," Nybbas said.

"I know what you think it is," Crowley replied. Bluffing, perhaps. They'd been searching for that for ages, there was no way they'd found it.

Long ago, in Golgotha, a Roman had taken pity on the poor Christ, piercing his side with a spear as he hung dying from the cross. The Lancaea had been lost to time, the shaft snapped during the act and the weapon thought discarded.

If this was indeed the Spear of Destiny, he was in quite a bit of trouble.

Crowley had liked the young man when he'd met him. It was a shame his death had come so early. Crowley figured it was a bit of justice if this hurt as much as he thought it might.

Just a little bit.

Nybbas was watching him, turning the spearhead in his hand. Either the wood had rotted away with time, or the fanatics had carted it off piecemeal to various shrines and holy places, as though that would somehow make them holier or change them for the better.

There wasn't anything to that sort of rubbish -- it was all about their free will and how they used it, after all.

"I'd heard you were taking to sleep, Crawly."

"It's Crowley, now."

"I don't care," Nybbas said. His smile never faded, but his eyes were flat, dull. "Yes or no?"

"A bit, yes," he said. He glossed over the century he'd spent asleep, instead rolling his shoulders in a shrug. "What's it to you?"

"Everything," Nybbas singsonged. "You forgot what I rule over already?"

Shit.

Nybbas's other domain was dreams. Specifically, nightmares or dreams of temptation.

"Such lovely, vivid dreams," Nybbas sighed, wistful. "I've never seen a demon have dreams before. How do you do it?"

"I...just do." Crowley had no idea why they'd started, though he wasn't about to tell Nybbas that.

"Who's the blond?" Nybbas asked.

Crowley froze. Of course he'd have seen. Crowley dreamt of Aziraphale often, not that he could really help that.

"No one. I made him up."

"Liar. Demons can't do that."

"I can."

"What's the Arrangement?" Nybbas focused on him like a cat that had caught a mouse and intended on playing with it.

"I've got no idea what you're talking about."

_"LIAR!"_

Nybbas was fast. Faster than Crowley had anticipated, and he had been ready for him. The smaller demon darted forward, and though Crowley hopped backward, he still took a hard gash across the forearm from the rusty spearhead.

It was a brilliant bolt of agony.

Crowley would have screamed, but all the air was sucked out of him in a wheeze, pulled from him by the slice to his forearm.

He'd been hanging here for hours, in the hot Golgotha sun. His arms were tired, his body flagging. Crowley stumbled, mashing his face against the brick of the wall. He scraped himself raw, sliding down against the filthy alleyway, sharp and shallow breaths not getting him the air he needed. The Romans laughed beneath him, even as he lifted himself up to take a breath.

He was weeping blood.

"Oh, so it  _is_  what I've been looking for," Nybbas said.

His smile returned.

* * *

Aziraphale was worried. He thought he'd seen Crowley, primping in his store front. He'd been poring over another misprinted bible, but had noticed the movement out of his peripheral. He'd been just about to invite the demon in for a drink, but Crowley had glanced at something over his shoulder, given his reflection those ridiculous finger thingies, and had sauntered on.

It had only really made Aziraphale curious.

It had only taken him a moment to put on his coat and grab his umbrella, but there was definitely a lack of Crowley as he stepped out of the shop and locked the doors with a twitch of his fingers.

So, he followed his nose.

Admittedly, he wasn't as good as Crowley with that sort of thing, but over the milennia he'd learned to look. Along with Crowley's presence came his scent; Aziraphale had to admit it had become something of a comfort these days. New leather, good earthy greenhouses, the hint of a campfire. There had been the sharp smell of good pipe tobacco, but it had gone and been replaced with the faint scent of engine oil once he'd bought the Bentley at the turn of the century.

Aziraphale couldn't tell if he preferred one or the other. They all smelled like Crowley, that was enough.

He ignored the track that thought was taking and followed his nose. He found the mischief wreaked at each spot he'd stopped, following Crowley's looping path all the way through Soho and into Whitechapel.

An hour or more of walking, and Aziraphale's worry hadn't abated. He was hardly exhaustible, but if this was Crowley playing with him, he'd rather be at his shop. Something in him, however, told him to keep going. It was the same quiet voice that had told him to help those poor people in the Garden, and he'd gotten better about listening to it.

"Dear St. Anthony, look around. Something's lost that can't be found," he muttered to himself, flexing his hands over his umbrella, looking this way and that, trying to pick out where the scents were coming from.

Close enough, and he could feel the demon's presence. It was a small pressure behind his eyes, something he'd been looking for, but as he turned another corner, he realized why it had faded as he got closer to it.

Something else had overwhelmed it.

A smaller man, his head tilted oddly and his lips pulled back in a rictus, stood over Crowley. There was a bloodied knife in his hand, and Aziraphale's brain stopped making anything but a roar of white noise as he started forward.

Not a man.  _Not a man._   ** _Not a man._**

* * *

Barely able to breathe.

The effects were fading, but Crowley was still gasping like a grounded fish. He was getting feeling back into his arms and legs, but he knew that Nybbas wasn't about to let him get away with just a cut. He was going to slice into him so he could feel that agony over and over, until his body gave out. Then he'd wait until Crowley recorporated, and then do it again.

It was now or never, while he still had some sense left in him. He couldn't die, not now.

He could run. Head to his flat. He had the holy water, he could--

**_"B E G O N E !"_ **

The voice cracked the pavement. It was a roar of white noise, a howl in the night that set off car alarms and roused dogs and cats of all kinds, sending them vocalizing into the once-quiet London night.

Nybbas turned, and Crowley struggled to see through the red haze that was his vision, but there was too much white. Blazing nothingness, shining straight into his eyes and he squinted, trying to see.

* * *

Aziraphale cracked the demon across the face with the handle of his umbrella so hard that the wood cracked. Splinters shattered into the being's jaw, and there was an unearthly scream as it fell back against the wall, clutching at its face. Its true form was nothing to sneer at, all smiling jaws and gnashing teeth, but Aziraphale jammed the rest of the umbrella into its sternum, angelic strength cleaving the breastbone in twain.

There was a crackle, a rush of flame, and a pop. The rusty knife clattered to the ground at his feet.

He and Crowley were alone, nothing but a scorchmark on the wall to mark the demon's passing.

* * *

Crowley forced himself upward into consciousness. He was in danger, he needed to-

He groaned, audibly. Well, he wheezed. It was close. In the ballpark.

His tripled vision doubled, then singled in on Aziraphale, his divine radiance leaking through his vessel, haloing him in light. His eyes blazed with a blue-white radiance, his mouth drawn tight with disapproval. A broken umbrella in his hand might as well have been a blade; Crowley saw why they'd given him the flaming sword.

He was beautiful and terrible to behold, and Crowley loved him effortlessly, though it would consume him.

Aziraphale turned to him, and the light faded, revealing the same familiar, soft man, moonlight threading through his white-blond curls. He'd never seen a better sight in his entire life.

"Angel," Crowley wheezed.

"Crowley!"

Crowley's eyes started to roll back into his head, and he fought unconsciousness for all he was worth. Unfortunately, unconsciousness sucker punched him in the solar plexus and everything faded to black.

* * *

It was warm and soft where he awoke, and Crowley hesitated to open his eyes just yet. His head was throbbing, but compared to the last time he was conscious, that was a marked improvement. He slowly sat up, cataloguing his hurts.

The gash on his forearm was bandaged, and he could already feel it healing. His gaze was caught by the sight of his shirt.

He looked down at himself.

Tartan pyjamas. Of course. He sighed.

Aziraphale had rescued him. He could let him have that one, at least.

He pressed his feet to the rug, unsurprised to find it as comfortable and plush as everything else.

He had to get up. Everything in here smelled like the angel and he really, really needed to go, before he buried his face in the pillow and didn't leave.

He snapped his fingers, the pyjamas replaced with clean attire that was more his style. Inhaling, he reached for the doorknob--

\--only to almost be knocked over by Aziraphale bustling in with two mugs of tea and breakfast on a tray.

"Oh," Aziraphale said, stopping short and righting the tray. "You're awake."

"Yeah," he said, his voice rusty. "How long was I out?"

"A month and a half." Crowley frowned. A month and a half, spent under the angel's roof? He'd have to explain his disappearance. "How are you feeling, my dear boy?"

"Turned inside out," Crowley said. "Tartan,  _really_?"

"It was all I had."

Crowley shot him a look over his glasses. Aziraphale colored a bright pink. He shuffled into the room and set the tray on a table.

"Won't you join me? I made coffee."

"How did you--"

"My umbrella," Aziraphale said, stirring sugar into his tea. "Made from a staff I had long ago. It's blessed by St. Anthony. Was blessed, I mean. It's broken now."

"Oh," Crowley said, unsure what to say to that. "What about the--"

"Shh-ssh!" Aziraphale said, shooting him a Look. "You don't need to know where It's gone. It's been taken care of."

Crowley considered that. Probably for the best, lest someone figure out he knew where the Spear was. He let that one go, nodding slowly.

"Your coffee's getting cold," Aziraphale said. "And you should try the biscuits. At least a nibble."

Crowley waved a hand and another squashy armchair floated over to where the table was, settling opposite Aziraphale.

There was no word to describe what he was feeling now. He couldn't thank Aziraphale. Not for this. They'd get wind downstairs and it would be a nightmare. He could spin it that he'd just gotten away, trying to warn poor Nybbus...yeah, that could work.

He sat, taking the cup and saucer the angel pushed toward him.

The coffee was the perfect temperature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nybbas, is a demon or spirit in the Dictionnaire Infernal, that manages visions and dreams. He is regarded as a buffoon and a charlatan. He is depicted as smiling. He is of the inferior order, high upper gallery of hell.
> 
> St. Anthony of Padua, known as the patron saint of lost articles, is credited with recovering lost people, items and stolen goods. In some cultures, the faithful petition him when in search of love.


	17. Revelry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __
>     
>     
>       _I think with my heart and I move with my head
>     I open my mouth and it's something I've read
>     I stood at this door before, I'm told
>     But a part of me knows that I'm growing too old
>     
>     Confused what I thought with something I felt
>     Confuse what I feel with something that's real
>     I tried to sell my soul last night
>     Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite_
>     
> 
> Crowley should know better, Aziraphale is a bit of a bastard, after all. But then, that's why Crowley likes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> waverly-earp asked:
> 
> "zero fucks given. next please.” + ineffable husbands

It was the most hilarious thing Crowley had seen this decade, other than Gabriel's face when he'd stepped into that pillar of hellfire. Aziraphale was staring at the end of his fork, where the last piece of a rather good angel food cake had been merely seconds before.

Had been, because while Aziraphale had been gesticulating with the piece of cake to make his point, Crowley had reached over, wrapped his long fingers around Aziraphale's wrist and took the end of the fork between his lips, stealing the last bite right from Aziraphale's hand.

"You, you-" Aziraphale sputtered. "Give that back!"

"Too late, angel," Crowley said, husking the words as he sipped the last of his coffee. "Quite good, though."

It was, actually. Light and fluffy, with just a hint of the fresh strawberries and cream that Aziraphale had ordered with it. It helped convey the smooth and earthy taste of his coffee. Crowley wasn't usually an eater, but when Aziraphale ordered food, he could see the appeal.

He made a show of licking his lower lip thoughtfully. Aziraphale went bright pink with aggravation, color crawling up his neck and down his ears, and Crowley smirked at him. It only made him sputter harder, hazel eyes going from his fork to Crowley's mouth in a darting, erratic dance to figure out where he was most offended.

"You owe me another piece," he said at last, a touch sulky.

"No fucks given, in the vernacular," Crowley said, lifting his finger to get the waiter's attention. "Devil's food next time, though."

Aziraphale perked up considerably.

* * *

He was warm.

Aziraphale's shop tended to be on the stuffy side, warm and dry, and Crowley liked it that way. The books did, too, he figured.

Still, he was feeling lax and more boneless than usual as he settled on the comfortable couch near the back that was reserved for their late night get togethers. Uncountable nights since 1800 had been spent here, drinking and arguing about things.

Crowley loved every second.

Just like tonight, drinking Chateau Margaux 1787 and giggling at the idea that someone had bought the last bottle, when Aziraphale had two cases in his expansive basement. Wine cellars in London weren't rare, and neither were cellars in Soho, but...Aziraphale's stretched for a good block and a half both ways, tucked between where people would think to notice such a thing.

He had impeccable taste in alcohol, much to Crowley's delight. Also, he had _lots_ of it, which was even better.

"Anyway, ducks do have ears, I found out," Aziraphale was saying. He gestured at Crowley with his half-full wine glass. "I asked."

"You asked?" Crowley said, his face twisting in disbelief. "You rang up the archangel fuckin' _Gabriel_ and asked him if ducks had ears?"

"No! Well, not exactly." Aziraphale glanced at the window, as though he'd spot his former supervisor staring in at them disapprovingly through the window.

Honestly, if he had been, Crowley could think of a number of modern obscene gestures he could make at him. Though, he thought, nothing wrong with a good old middle finger.

"A-anyway, no, I spoke with Admael. They say that ducks do have ears. Just not the sticky-outy bit." Aziraphale tugged on his own earlobe.

"Mm," Crowley said, his glasses slipping down his nose. "Makes sense. Not very aeri- aero- you can't fly like that."

Aziraphale laughed, his mouth stained red with the wine and his shoulders relaxed from their straight-as-an-arrow posture. Joy lit his cherubic face, his hazel eyes just a shade unfocused.

Crowley liked him like this, as close to undone as he ever got, not a stitch of clothing out of place but on the razor's edge of sloppy, drunk enough to giggle but not enough to make a mistake that would spook him.

"Why don't you ever take your sunglasses off?"

He'd been staring, and it caught him off guard, the question like a dunk in freezing water. He squinted at Aziraphale, who was studying him intently.

"Wot."

"Why don't you ever show your eyes?" he asked. His cupid's bow mouth parted just a bit, the moue attractive, especially as red as his mouth was at the moment. Like he'd been feasting at pomegranates, wine dark and indulgent.

Crowley pressed his glasses up against the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, don't be angry," Aziraphale said, rising. He made his way unsteadily across the floor, depositing his empty wine glass in mid air, where it stayed out of deference to the angel's drunken whim. He crossed to the couch, kneeling where Crowley was sprawled and gently taking the stems of his glasses from him. "I've always liked them, you know."

Crowley blinked, which he hardly ever did, but the surprise was too great and his body too close to human in his drunken state to even register the motion. Aziraphale folded and set his glasses aside, the table accepting its burden without too much of a clatter, wine bottle sliding aside so that no harm would come to his sunglasses.

"I-"

"Lovely," Aziraphale breathed, coming closer, his wine-stained lips inches from Crowley's own. He could feel the heat of the exhale, sharing breath with Aziraphale, who studied his eyes with the gaze of a patron come to observe their artist at work.

Crowley's fingers were lax on his wineglass, so he barely noticed when Aziraphale took the last of the wine from him, stealing the very last sip of the Margaux, placing his lips where Crowley's had been minutes before as he drained the glass.

He could do nothing but watch as the last of the wine slid past Aziraphale's lips. He understood then why the Greeks frenzied when in the throes of their cups. A laurel wreath upon Aziraphale's brow once more, and he could see them rending a king limb from limb for him.

He knew that he would.

"Was that for the cake?" he asked, his voice uncomfortably hoarse.

Aziraphale's look was sly as he lowered the glass.

" _No fucks given_ , in the vernacular," he said, his manicured fingers caressing the stem of the glass. "Another?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admael watches over every inhabitant of our planet. He has a vast knowledge about the animal and vegetable kingdoms. This beautiful angel brings you great knowledge about the planet that you live on. Admael is also the angel of creation. He cares about every creation of God, big or small. He knows even the smallest organisms on Earth. He watches over the inhabitants of the lands, seas and air.
> 
> In 1989, a bottle, also from Thomas Jefferson's collection, was valued at an astronomical $500,000 by its owner, a New York wine merchant called William Sokolin. The high price may have been a publicity stunt, but it was never tested. When Sokolin took the wine with him to a Margaux dinner at the Four Season Hotel, a waiter knocked the bottle over, breaking it. Insurers paid out $225,000. (Crowley thinks this is the funniest thing he's ever heard at the time, because at that point Aziraphale had three cases rather than two.)
> 
> Also, if you like my work, you should as always check out the ineffable bearfeathers, whose writing has been and always will be my brass ring - they've joined me on this descent, sauntering vaguely downward with their own fic: [there'll be talk of what this is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19277032/chapters/45845644).
> 
> Also I should mention that [Kamibanani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamibanani/pseuds/kamibanani) has been inspired as well, and her fics are a joy to read! Their Aziraphale is just effervescent, conflicted, and just a touch blasphemous, exactly as he should be, I love him.


	18. Turn of the Wheel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 
>       _People say I'm crazy
>     Doing what I'm doing
>     Well, they give me all kinds of warnings
>     To save me from ruin
>     When I say that I'm okay, well they look at me kinda strange
>     "Surely, you're not happy now, you no longer play the game."_
>     
> 
> For Crowley, all roads lead back to Aziraphale, sooner or later. He prefers sooner, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles said:  
> (you asked for this, can't stop me now!) Ineffable Husbands: Honey, I found a reason to keep living / And you know the reason, dear it's you / And I've walked down life's lonely highways / Hand in hand with myself / And I realized how many paths have crossed between us

**Rome, 363 AD**

"Crawly! Er, Crowley. Well! Fancy running into you here!"

The familiar voice sent a thrill for him that he ignored. He was here to get drunk, not talk with the Other Side. He hadn't seen the angel since the business in Golgotha, when he'd delivered his new name and then wandered away once he'd tempted that soldier into having pity on the poor lad.

Not even the Christ child deserved that nasty business. Leave Hell to the humans, they were much better at it than he was.

"Still a demon, then?"

Oh, for hea- for Satan's sake.

"Of course I'm still a demon, what else am I going to be, an aardvark?" His annoyed look seemed to cow the angel, making him settle back onto the stool he'd appropriated. Crowley relented, holding out his clay cup. " _Salutaria_."

They toasted. The alcohol was sweet and cool, perfect for just coming in off a dusty road.

"In Rome long?"

He considered. Was this their way of getting information from him? He'd never heard of Heaven tempting demons, though it would be in their repertoire, sitting up on their high and mighty walls and dangling something in front of him he couldn't have.

The least information possible, surely that's the way to do things.

"No, just nipped in for a quick temptation." That Julian fellow just needed a nudge, after all. Wasn't hard, and it would cause strife for a long time. That was what he was best at. "You?"

"I thought I'd try Petronius' new restaurant. I hear he does remarkable things to oysters." Aziraphale's face was lit from within by eagerness; Crowley had seen the same look on the face of a puppy when presented with a fine bit of meat and bone.

"I've never had an oyster," he found himself saying.

"Oh! Oh, well, let me tempt you to--" It was all he could do to keep a straight face, though he couldn't help leaning back and raising his eyebrows in askance. "Oh, no. That's...that's your job, isn't it?"

Crowley decided for the fourth time in their acquaintance that he quite liked this angel. He was Different.

Different was good.

* * *

**York, 1456**

"Hello, angel," he said. It was funny to watch the angel startle, to catch him in the middle of one of his hedonistic binges, a plate of quinces and connyng in grayue before him. His eyes had been closed, savoring the food.

So nice to find an angel who indulged so readily.

"Crowley," he said, blotting at his lips with a cloth seemed to be set aside for the purpose. "What are you doing in York?"

"This and that," he said, always cagey. "You give my suggestion some thought?"

"The answer is, as always, no," Aziraphale replied. "Out of the question."

Pity. Crowley made a show of looking disappointed, but he reached for his bag after a moment and set the leatherbound volume next to Aziraphale's hand.

"I've just been to Germany," he said. "They're doing interesting things with the written word. Good fellow, Gutenberg."

Aziraphale's eyes lit up as he turned his attention from food to his second favorite thing.

"I suppose I should say thank you," Aziraphale said.

"Shut up," Crowley said. He glanced about him, yellow eyes darting to the dark corners of the eating house. "Someone will hear you."

* * *

**Russia, 1916**

Crowley hated the cold. Hell was demanding he oversee this one personally, and he was irritated about it. Rasputin wasn't one of theirs, but they were going to claim him regardless, and that meant paperwork he wasn't looking forward to doing.

It wasn't until he spotted Aziraphale across the way that he knew he was Supposed to be here, even without the job bit.

"Hello, angel."

"Crowley." Aziraphale was looking far more stern than he remembered. "I can't be seen with you."

"Obviously," Crowley said, his voice holding more bite than he intended, sharp in the frozen air. His tone was mocking, and Aziraphale flinched, and he regretted it instantly. "Wondering what you're doing here."

They hadn't spoken since the park, and he hated how bitter he sounded.

"Looking after someone," Aziraphale said. "The little ones don't deserve this."

Crowley was inclined to agree.

* * *

**Russia, 1918**

Crowley was warm, and he hated the reason for it. He'd been sprinting the breadth of the town, looking for the safehouse, but he already knew he was too late. Ligur had already done his work, and that meant that he'd find--

He skidded to a stop, finding Aziraphale standing across the street from a house in the early morning hours. No one was awake; if they were, they weren't advertising it if they knew what was good for them. Aziraphale was stared across the street at the house.

It was just before dawn, the grey light growing brighter as the world turned on.

"Angel," he said, hands on his knees as he reconciled the exertion with his vessel, miracling away the lactic acid that made his limbs burn. He could have chosen to ignore it, but the discomfort was one of the things that kept things interesting.

He didn't answer for a long moment, but then he turned his expressive hazel eyes onto Crowley, and he felt the weight of that weary stare straight through to the core of him.

"They took them downstairs hours ago," he said softly.

"I--" He looked over at the house. There was no indication what had gone on; news reports were conflicted at best.

"Was this you?" Aziraphale asked.

"No," he said. He flung an arm at the house. "I'd nothing to do with that, he had passage to London. They were going into exile! I was going to oversee the trip, but this--I'd never, you know that."

"I have to wonder," Aziraphale said. "They were children, Crowley."

"You think I don't know that?!" Crowley said, his voice rising to a shout. Aziraphale flinched away from the crack of the noise, the sound so early in the morning ricocheting through the air. "I don't--"

"But it was your side," he said.

Crowley had no argument for that.

"I must be getting on," Aziraphale said. "I have to...to write up what happened. Goodbye, Crowley."

Crowley opened his mouth to protest, but there was a pop and the angel was gone. He clenched his fist in the morning air and sort of wished Ligur was there, just so he could put his fist through his undoubtedly smug face.

* * *

**2019**

"You always come back," Aziraphale said softly, so softly Crowley almost didn't hear him. "You always seem to be able to find me."

"Well, you'd be lost without me," Crowley said. A touch defensive, perhaps. They'd just averted the apocalypse, after all, and the angel was hung up on how he couldn't seem to get rid of him.

"No, no. Thank you," he said. Crowley focused on Aziraphale's face. "For coming back."

"Oh." Crowley shifted on the bench. "Well, of course."

"You always seem to know before I do," Aziraphale said softly. "Quicker than I am, by far."

"Hm?" Crowley asked, peering at Aziraphale over his sunglasses.

"Nothing," Aziraphale said, beaming at him. "I'm just...very glad you didn't give up on me, my dear."

"Never," Crowley said.

And he meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Julian the Apostate was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, and he believed that it was necessary to restore the Empire's ancient Roman values and traditions in order to save it from dissolution. He purged the top-heavy state bureaucracy, and attempted to revive traditional Roman religious practices at the expense of Christianity. His attempt to build a Third Temple in Jerusalem was probably intended to harm Christianity rather than please Jews. Julian also forbade the Christians from teaching and learning classical texts. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate by the church.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kind comments. I'm overwhelmed, and I know I should respond, but there are far more than I usually get so I'm just sort of sitting here and fretting about how to go about it. I'm so pleased you're all enjoying it, however. I'm not as happy with this one, I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'll work out why eventually.


	19. Unfashionably Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __
>     
>     
>     While the church discouraged, any lust that burned within me
>     Yes my flesh, it was my currency, but I held true
>     So I drive a taxi, and the traffic distracts me
>     From the strangers in my backseat, they remind me of you
>     
>     But I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life
>     And when I die alone, when I die alone, when I die I'll be on time
>     
>     And the only gifts from my Lord were a birth and a divorce
>     But I've read this script and the costume fits, so I'll play my part
> 
> __
> 
> Acceptance comes slowly, then all at once. Aziraphale was always slow to embrace change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles said:
> 
> Ineffable Husbands: i will choose love, i choose to serve // i give my heart, i give my life, i give my all to you

**New York, 1924**

The lights were his favorite part. Shining bulbs that flickered to life at sunset, they bathed the whole of New York in a glow that rivaled the stars. London had the same affairs, but the billboards there were less flashy.

Americans did things much larger than anything he'd ever seen before.

Aziraphale thought that it looked quite like what humans thought Heaven was like.

Too bad the real thing had so much more paperwork.

Still, he was glad he was down here, enjoying the lights coming to life and the bustle of the city. He slipped between the crowds, ethereal and wispy, avoiding taking full form just so that he could get to his reservation faster.

He'd charmed his way into Chumley's, a speakeasy that held a reputation as having good drinks, better food, and appealing clientele. Writers of all kinds lounged there when in New York, and Aziraphale was nothing if not a collector of words, even if they weren't his own.

The West Village was lovely, the night not yet going cold, holding on to some of the vestiges of summer.

He smoothed his suit as he came closer, making sure it was neat and wrinkle free as he approached. Knocking on the door meant a little window slid open, revealing the hard blue eyes of a bouncer.

"A. Z. Fell," he said, beaming up at the doorman. He checked his list and nodded, opening up the door.

Aziraphale was shown to a neat leather booth all his own, but he was never alone for long. Soon he had a small gathering that ebbed and flowed around him, greeting him with handshakes and kisses to the cheek. No one stayed for long, but they all knew him.

He was a helper, you see. Literature was helpful when you sold books. He'd just gotten a jump on his collecting, that was all.

Surrounded by good drink, fine food (Oysters Rockefeller if you must know, not as good as his jaunt to New Orleans, but excellent in its difference in preparation), and good company, and Aziraphale felt alive, at least for a few hours.

He'd offered his congratulations to one of his friends' novels, he'd just finished it, lovely book, so poignant, The Beautiful and Damned—

Something familiar crawled down his back. The scent of a campfire and good tobacco, green growing things. He glanced at the door, spotting a familiar head of red hair, slicked back to his skull, sunglasses conspicuous in the dim lights of the speakeasy.

"No," he mumbled, turning his gaze away. Not tonight. It was too soon and there were too many people. He wasn't ready, and wasn't willing, to handle this tonight.

He was still raw and aching from Russia, the loss of the Romanovs a blow for their side that was hard to estimate. They'd had such big plans for the little ones. They would have united the whole country. Gabriel hadn't been happy about the loss, that was for sure.

He wasn't ready to face Crowley. Not yet. Not for a couple of decades. This was their closest brush in a while, usually gravitating back and forth every decade or so, sometimes staying out of touch for a century or more. Now, in this new century, it felt like they were coming together, as though pulled by a magnet, rounding corners and finding the other there. It wasn't so much the meetings as it was the frequency.

It was all too fast for him, if he were honest.

He set his money beneath the plate, gesturing at the waiter that he was leaving and they should whisk his dishes away – and keep the tip he'd left them for nodding him to the door that led out to Bedford Street.

There wasn't enough liquor in the world right now that would settle his spirits in regards to the demon.

He inhaled the night air, only to choke as a motorcar roared past him. Coughing, he forced the air from his lungs and began walking.

None of that tonight.

He sighed when Crowley fell into step with him regardless. Because of course he'd been seen. The demon took particular delight in seeking him out, after all. Why have the Arrangement, otherwise?

"Angel," Crowley said. He took the time to strike a match with his thumb, lighting his cigarette. "What are you doing here?"

"I was enjoying a plate of Oysters Rockefeller," he said, his tone snappish. "And having a nice night out. Alone."

"Look—"

"No, _you_ look," Aziraphale said.

He whirled on Crowley, bullying him into a nearby alleyway. Maybe he'd relied on Crowley always appearing at his left elbow instead of his right, but when the opportunity came, he took it. They bumped chests, and Crowley, unused to such vehemence from Aziraphale, was forced along.

He thumped a pair of fingers into Crowley's breastbone.

"I'm not speaking to you right now," he said.

"Liar," Crowley said, peering at him over his spectacles. "We're speaking right now."

"You _know_ what I mean," Aziraphale said. "Not right now. It's too soon."

"Lucky isn't expecting me back for a few hours," Crowley said, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. "Fancy a drink?"

"No, Crowley." Aziraphale shook his head. He wanted to keep walking, but Crowley's long legs always seemed to keep perfect pace with him.

"I wanted to explain—"

"What's there to explain?!" Aziraphale cried. "Your Side killed children!"

"So does _yours_!" Crowley snapped back. "Or did you forget that part?"

"Not me, though!" Aziraphale said.  
  
Despair was keen, when you were an angel. It welled up from the same place, turning the water of hope that flowed from your Font brackish and cold, plunging you into misery. He still felt it, only a scant few years later.

Perhaps he should have stayed home, but he had always been fond of oysters.

"Me either," Crowley said. He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick out from its neatly slicked state. "Angel, they're humans. They die. That's what they _do_."

"I..." Aziraphale was so, so tired.

"Ever since they left the Garden," he said.

"Well, whose fault was _that_?" Aziraphale said.

That was hardly fair to Crowley, in hindsight. They all had a part to play in the Ineffable Plan. That was what he'd been told since the Beginning. Crowley, for his part, hardly looked offended.

Crowley shrugged, letting the insult roll off his back. "They could have chosen to avoid temptation. They didn't."

Aziraphale stepped back from Crowley, pressing both hands to his face and closing his eyes. He was so tired.

The worst part was, Crowley was at least partially right. He hadn't had a chance to think about it, but he knew, he did. Crowley hadn't lied to him, regardless of being a serpent, a demon who had no cause or reason to tell him the truth.

Heaven talked about acceptable losses, about casualties. They were just numbers to the office workers upstairs, but Aziraphale had walked among them for so long that it was impossible to separate the shepherd from his flock.

If they were the good guys, why weren't they doing, well, good? Food and water and medicine to the needy. Homes to the poor, clothing to the destitute. Helping those that helped themselves seemed like a cop out, an excuse to move pieces across an invisible game board instead of doing what they were created to do.

There was only so much he could do himself, and the thought of starting on his own, alone, was terrifying. Because surely heaven wouldn't approve. He was required to be where he'd been told to be.

That was all he was going to do from now on. No more Arrangement, no more helping. There was too much suffering to waste it on minor inconveniences.

It was all too much to deal with, all at once.

So, he did what he did best. He ran.

"I'm going home," he said. "I don't want to talk tonight, Crowley."

Crowley opened his mouth again, but Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and he was in front of his shop. A waste of a Miracle, large and hefty, but he could explain it away as avoiding detection from the Other Side.

He went inside and locked his door. No more America. Not for a while. He made himself a cup of tea and settled in with a book, the oysters sitting too heavily on his stomach now for him to enjoy them.

"Coward," he muttered to himself.

* * *

**1941**

"Oh, the books. Oh, I forgot all the books! Oh, they'll all be blown to—"

Crowley sucked on his teeth, leaning down and prising the case from the dead, gripping fingers of the former spy. He held out the case to Aziraphale, who looked at it like it had grown a face.

"Little demonic miracle of my own," Crowley said. He lifted his brows at Aziraphale, stepping over the crumpled stone wall, hot footing it out of the crater. "Lift home?"

Aziraphale could only stare. Crowley surely had no reason to do it, other than knowing it would please Aziraphale. He clutched the books to his chest, feeling his heart hammering in his chest, beating against his breastbone like a bird.

He hurried after Crowley.

Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. He hadn't meant to—

He swallowed hard.

He was in love with Crowley. He had been, he had just never seen it.

It was the first of many such realizations, but things started snapping together, like one had found the secrets of a particularly good puzzle and had worked out what it was supposed to be.

This would kill them both, he was certain. Hell didn't take kindly to traitors, and Heaven would cast him out. It was something to be pressed inside him, etched into his insides but never spoken aloud. It would kill them both, and Aziraphale had never been a brave angel, not where this was concerned.

He had indulged in everything else, but this...

He couldn't bear Crowley putting himself in a position where it would destroy him.

He was quiet on the ride home, but it didn't seem to bother Crowley that much.

"Tempt you to supper?" Crowley asked, instead, as they approached the book shop.

"I—" Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut.

He'd missed Crowley. He had.

The last twenty-three years had been lonelier than normal. He'd missed the demon's presence, because without it, he'd realized that he really had no support down here. He could count on one hand the number of times Gabriel or another angel had entered his shop, or even sought him out before then.

He studied Crowley from his peripheral. While his outside appearance changed often, there was no doubt Crowley remained the same demon.

Crowley was the only being he knew who was as unchanging as the tides – unpredictable, yes, but comforting in that unpredictability. Familiar in its chaos.

Crowley was his constant, a rudder against the swirling tides of time and the ever-retreating voice of the Almighty. Was this a part of the Plan, as well?

Or was he becoming lost?

Aziraphale, once so sure of himself, had no idea anymore. All he knew anymore was that there was the good, solid weight of books on his lap, the artfully restful length of Crowley in the seat next to him, and the rumble of the Bentley roaring down the shattered street into the night.

It could...be worse.

"I'd like that," he said softly. Likely, Crowley wouldn't accept an apology. But a fresh start, something for them both, that could work, surely?

* * *

**2019**

"Cheers." Aziraphale lifted his glass, and Crowley touched his to it.

"To the world," Crowley said, his eyes on Aziraphale.

Something was different. Maybe it was just the world made in Adam Young's image. Perhaps they'd changed so much, they didn't recognize themselves anymore. For some reason, it didn't bother Aziraphale like it would have a week ago.

It was all right if they didn't recognize themselves. They recognized each other, and some would say that was the most important bit of all.

"To the world," Aziraphale said, his voice soft. The chime of their glasses was like a bell, one that seemed to echo in his heart.

It was enough. It was better than enough.

This was _**his**_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charles Luciano, born Salvatore Lucania, better known as "Lucky Luciano", was an influential Italian-born mobster, criminal mastermind, and crime boss who operated mainly in the United States. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for the establishment of the first Commission. He was also the first official boss of the modern Genovese crime family. He was, along with his associates, instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate.
> 
> The twenties were busy for Crowley.


	20. They Aren't Really Bare, Are They?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes new music isn't _awful_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles asked:
> 
> Ineffable Husbands: someone discovers 90/00s pop

Aziraphale did a clumsy sort of half-shuffle around the shop, books in his arms as he bopped along to the song broadcasting across the wireless.

It wasn't his usual fare, but the lyrics called to him. He'd heard it on the sound system in the diner he frequented when he and Crowley had gone their separate ways, and it sort of...imprinted.

 _I met you before the fall of Rome_  
_And I begged you to let me take you home_  
_You were wrong, I was right_  
_You said goodbye, I said goodnight_

He remembered Rome. The colors and sounds, the way people laughed and talked. The bustle of the marketplaces. Discovering oysters, and the barbers.

He settled the books in their new homes, giving them fond pats as he did, not realizing he was being watched. Being absorbed in his work, the song was on loop because he'd willed it so.

_If I put my fingers here, and if I say "I love you, dear--"_

It wasn't the singer, background noise in Aziraphale's busy mind. It was a husky, new voice, intruding.

Fingers against the back of his neck, warm breath against his ear; it made him shriek, the first edition Fitzgerald going airborne as he flailed.

Crowley laughed, snapping his fingers and causing the delicate book to settle in Aziraphale's trembling palms.

"Busy, Angel?" he asked, eyebrows rising over his sunglasses.

"Crowley," he gasped, clutching the copy of The Beautiful and Damned against his chest. "You scared me half to death."

"Let me make it up to you, then," Crowley said, his grin sharp in his face. Like he delighted in the mischief for mischief's sake.

The scare wasn't the reason why Aziraphale's heart continued to patter like a rabbit thumping away from a predator, however.

"How?" Aziraphale asked.

"Lunch?"

Aziraphale looked at his watch. Had he really worked through the morning? Goodness.

He shelved the Fitzgerald and smoothed his waistcoat.

"All right then," he said. Crowley tilted his head to Aziraphale and gave an 'after you' tilt of his whole body, in his Crowley way.

_Will I cry? Will I smile?  
As you run down the aisle?_

Aziraphale snapped his fingers, shutting off the wireless and the lights as he prepared to close up the shop and fetched his coat.

"Are we finally branching out musically?" Crowley asked.

"Well, perhaps," Aziraphale said. "Though I expect it won't catch on. Bebop, you know."

Crowley chuckled, holding the door for Aziraphale.

Lunch was delicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My monitor died. I needed a distraction. The internet provides.
> 
> Short and sweet, but still Very Important, I feel. C:


	21. Adrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get silly. Crowley doesn't mind so much, so long as he's spending time with Aziraphale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nerdlytreasure asked:
> 
> Aziraphale and Crowley stuck on a life raft

“Surely it’s not going to end this way,” Aziraphale said, letting his bedraggled wings trail in the water. They weren’t much use – no one had mentioned that the Bermuda Triangle had the odd effect of nullifying their powers if they weren’t ready for it.

“Well, there are worse ways to go,” Crowley said, still gamely steering for what he thought might be the edge of the dead zone. Their sloop wasn’t large, but it would be all right, so long as they managed to wiggle free.

“Do you think Agnes Nutter might have predicted this?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley considered for a moment.

“Mm, I think the horse might have been a surprise,” he said. The horse, to its credit, only pinned its ears back at Crowley a little bit this time. Aziraphale had separated them at once, but honestly, Crowley should have tipped the bitey bugger overboard when he’d had the chance.

Crowley flicked out his tongue at the jumpy Arabian and smirked when it stamped a hoof at him.

“Don’t antagonize the horse, my dear,” Aziraphale chided, not looking up from his map.

Crowley sighed and steered the sloop into a prevailing wind, righting their course and hoping he could feel his powers returning soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is ridiculous. Much like its author.


	22. Paint My Spirit Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __
>     
>     
>     So break my step
>     And relent
>     You forgave and I won't forget
>     Know what we've seen
>     And him with less
>     Now in some way
>     Shake the excess
>     
>     'Cause I will wait, I will wait for you
>     And I will wait, I will wait for you
>     
>     Now I'll be bold
>     As well as strong
>     And use my head alongside my heart
>     So take my flesh
>     And fix my eyes
>     A tethered mind free from the lies
> 
> __
> 
> Crowley has been more patient than he has any right to be. Aziraphale is glad he waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dragons-bones said:  
> 👀 62 + 63 for the Ineffable Husbands, please?
> 
> 62\. “Do you have a ride home?” | 63. “I am home.”

_"Right, time to leave the garden."_

Crowley had been right, in a sense. They'd been following a path since Eden, ever since he'd come down off the wall to hand off a flaming sword in a rebellious act of love. Aziraphale wasn't one to scoff at prophecy, but there had been a sense of...wiggle room, perhaps, when it came to their roles as a part of protection and temptation. He'd certainly strayed across lines more than once in pursuit of both the truth and what he felt was right.

Now, they'd entered entirely uncharted territory. Agnes Nutter's remaining prophecies had been burnt without reading, Anathema Device rejecting a future that was written. Anathema had taken her freedom and become her own person. Aziraphale thought that was an admirable thing, even though the prophecies had been burnt.

While Aziraphale might have liked a look at them, it wasn't his decision, and frankly, the more he thought about it, the freer it felt.

Agnes had granted them their freedom. It seemed like since that day they'd swapped and gone to their 'deaths', it had been one foot in front of the other for the angel and the demon. The path led in circles, up and down and through, but always together. It had, for lack of a better term, been business as usual--Crowley was a demon, after all, and Aziraphale had his own opinions about doing good works--but it was laced with an underlying tension that the angel hadn't felt since his time upon the Eastern Wall.

He wondered if Crowley felt the same, as though they were waiting on the universe to exhale, and for life to resume its comfortable familiarity once again.

It wasn't that he faced this new life with trepidation; on the contrary, Aziraphale had found a sudden relish for trying new things. Crowley, as well, had seemed to take what the day gave them with surprising grace, so long as he was woken after twelve.

They had spent almost every day together, after their subsequent judgments by their offices. They'd been left blessedly alone, free to do what they liked. There was nothing to stop them from just...being. It was an interesting change, this rapid closeness.

Aziraphale had a long memory. Being immortal, he knew that it was important to preserve it, too. He'd taken to jotting down his meetings with Crowley, the date, and the context. Like celestial bodies in orbit around each other, they'd stayed constant, but growing ever closer. In the Beginning, he'd spent a long time without seeing the demon Crawly. Noah's little boat trip had marked the first of many seemingly random meetings.

As time wound on, so did they, crossing paths more and more frequently. While Aziraphale hardly believed in serendipity, though Agnes Nutter was the exception, it seemed as though when he trod the world, all paths lead back to Crowley sooner or later.

Over the span of millennia, Aziraphale had grown to enjoy these meetings. Friendship was hard to come by when one was lucky to see another angel in the span of centuries, much less years. Centuries became bi-century meetings. Bi-centuries turned into Crowley turning up once every couple of decades. Then every couple of years. Soon, it was rare to go six months without at least seeing Crowley once.

Now, he saw him every day.

Aziraphale felt as though he'd been missing this, as though a piece of him had slotted neatly into place and he'd finally become complete. Happiness wasn't rare for the angel; he'd always found joy in life on earth, even though it was small and sometimes taken like a thief, basking in the background radiation of a proposal between lovers or a child's first pet. His own happiness had become something of a verdant luxury, however, coating his life in a fine sheen of enjoyment, like he'd walked into the muggy air of the greenhouse Crowley kept on top of his flat.

They'd just finished a particularly good lunch at Petersham Nurseries, the plants pleasing Crowley to no end and the food delighting Aziraphale's palate (though Crowley had made approving noises at the rose petal Prosecco). Now, they rambled, as they'd taken to doing, just strolling the streets and people watching, talking about everything and nothing.

He'd never had so much fun.

Their day was ending, though it had been a good one. They found themselves in a familiar haunt, strolling through St. James park, solidly side by side. Crowley looked up at the sky. Aziraphale followed his gaze, watching how the clouds grew heavy with reds and oranges, pinks easing in as the sun sank below the horizon.

"Getting late," Crowley said, lifting his brows at him, almost like it was a question rather than a statement.

Aziraphale felt a pang of regret. It had become more common, now that familiarity had bred fondness for the demon. Contempt was for people with no compassion, who hadn't spent six thousand years learning that there was more to Crowley than his appearance and carefully cultivated reputation. Their day really was coming to an end.

They would part, only to reconvene in the morning.

"It is," he agreed. They were standing by the water, the ducks long having abandoned their search for Russian bread and herding themselves to their nests for sleep.

"It's been—" Crowley started, then stopped. Aziraphale waited, knowing that sometimes Crowley needed a moment to get out whatever was coiled in his brain at the moment. "This has been..."

"Nice," Aziraphale supplied.

"Eurgh," Crowley replied, reflexively, looking as though he were holding his gorge back.

"Acceptable," Aziraphale tried again.

"Yeah," Crowley said. He frowned, as though this wasn't the right term for it. Standing shoulder to shoulder on the bank of the pond, Aziraphale was inclined to agree.

Nice had been the better term.

"I've found myself looking forward to each day," Aziraphale commented, quietly.

Crowley's focus shifted to him, and Aziraphale could feel his eyes on him, even as he lifted one shoulder in a shrug at the demon.

"I have," he said. "I know that we've counted millennia, but these days, where we do Nothing at all? I've come to see them as important. I've got a long memory, and I can't remember the last time I've had such...a satisfying day as the days I've spent in your company since the world didn't end."

"That's so..." Crowley huffed a little laugh. "Yeah, all right. I suppose they've been rather...mm."

Aziraphale felt the corners of his lips tugging up. "Was that you admitting I'm right?"

"Not at all. Stopped clocks are only right twice a day," Crowley said, the beginnings of his own smile showing hints of white teeth.

"I'll pretend that was a yes," Aziraphale said airily.

Crowley laughed. "Give you a lift home, angel?"

Aziraphale's smile faded. "No, no I don't think so."

Crowley's mood whiplashed as he focused on Aziraphale. "What's wrong, something I've said?"

"No," the angel said, turning to Crowley. "Just your terms. I don't need a lift home."

"Anywhere you want to go, then," Crowley tried, ducking his head just a bit to try and get a read on Aziraphale's face.

"Crowley, you can't take me home." Aziraphale shook his head a little. "You taking me home implies you leaving. That's not possible."

"What—"

"Wherever you are, I feel most at home, I mean," Aziraphale said, blurting the words that had been fluttering behind his breastbone. They'd been there since Rome, possibly the Wall. It had taken him so long, so _so_ long to even consider that Crowley could feel the same, it was hard to keep the words that filled his nights and days like books in his shop.

They'd leapt from his mouth as though he'd been born to say them, despite their nervous quaver.

"Aziraphale," Crowley said, his voice soft. That tenderness that he tried so very hard to keep hidden, to keep locked away at the core of him because it would betray them both. Aziraphale's heart ached to gather that tenderness to himself, to return it in kind.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said. "Please don't be upset but—"

He reached up, cupping the demon's face and leaned up on his toes to press his lips to Crowley's.

It was hardly his first kiss; he'd been kissed many times, by many people. It had been a greeting long ago, without the romantic connotations. But this...it was the first he'd ever offered up, willingly. Crowley's mouth opened in a sigh and Aziraphale remembered belatedly that he was the Original Sin, temptation incarnate, and he took what Crowley had to offer, tasting the prosecco on his tongue even now as he sipped at his lips in long, greedy draws.

There was the hint of apples, and Aziraphale thought that perhaps it was just Crowley.

He gave a giddy, shaky sort of noise, delighted to take the lead in this, until he felt how Crowley trembled.

" _Aziraphale_ ," he said again, his voice husky and sounding wrecked as he breathed the name against the angel's lips. As though he was the penitent at altar and offered himself because he had nothing left.

Aziraphale realized they were standing in the middle of the park. He carefully disengaged them, pressing their foreheads together.

"Come home with me, Crowley," Aziraphale said.

"All right," Crowley said, his eyes half-lidded and lazy behind his sunglasses. His pupils were wide, drinking in the angel's flushed face.

Aziraphale couldn't help his smile. He offered Crowley his hand, and after a moment, the demon took it.

The universe exhaled, and he saw that it was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed the fluff. It called to me.


	23. Elopement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __
>     
>     
>       _Thought of you as my mountaintop
>     Thought of you as my peak
>     Thought of you as everything
>     I’ve had but couldn’t keep_
>     
> 
> Call and answer; redux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> elluvias said:  
> Ineffable husbands "don't walk out that door."

"There is no 'our side', Crowley. It's over."

Crowley froze at the words. Of course, the angel had chosen heaven over him. How could he forget? The Arrangement was convenient but never meant to be permanent.

He made himself inhale, made himself take the steps needed.

_If I had anything, I would tell you, obviously. Immediately. We're friends._

"Right. Well, then. Have a nice doomsday." He tried to make it sound neutral, but it just came out shattered, grating against his vocal cords as if he'd screamed it. He turned, stiff, and started to walk away.

Don't look back. It doesn't matter.

He could still stop things. He thought. If he could find the Antichrist, if he could...

All of his plans revolved around Aziraphale being around. It seemed like his cunning had been lopped off at the knees, attempting to make plans without him. It was patently ridiculous; he could surely make plans to save his own skin.

Except, at this point, he didn't really see the need. All they'd worked for, striking that perfect balance of cancelling each other's meddling out, it was all for naught because a boy had been found and he was rapidly approaching his day of destiny.

And Crowley had lost him. Maybe if he'd found some way to—

He was already at the Bentley, and he slapped his hand down on the little green Citroen parked beside it, cursing the owner with transmission problems out of spite.

Damn it all. Damn earth, damn the antichrist, damn the angel and damn...damn him.

Again.

There was one more thing, but he needed a location. He needed the few books he owned and he needed time to think. Time was rapidly running out, and he screeched away, horns blaring in his wake.

* * *

"Angel! I'm sorry. I apologize. Whatever I said, I didn't mean it. Work with me, I'm apologizing here. Yes? Good. Get in the car." Crowley's frantic gestures had finally gotten Aziraphale to turn around. He could see the war on Aziraphale's face, the doubt and the fear mingling with his own angelic resolve.

Damn him, Crowley did the last thing he wanted to do. He twitched his fingers, weaving persuasion and temptation into his voice in equal measure. He'd always been a smooth talker, been good at this. He could do it. He knew he could.

"What? No." Righteousness burned in Aziraphale's gaze, though it was faint. He could see the mask slipping, the vessel the angel wore a poor conduit for his true nature.

"The forces of Hell have figured out it was my fault," Crowley said, trying for sympathy now. "But we can run away together!  Alpha Centauri. Lots of spare planets up there. Nobody would even notice us."

Aziraphale's exasperation would have delighted Crowley any other time. Now, however, he despaired.

"Crowley, you're being ridiculous." Aziraphale shook of the hand that Crowley didn't remember latching onto his sleeve, smoothing his waistcoat. "Look, I-I’m quite sure if I can just just reach the right people, then I can get all this sorted out."

"There are no right people!" He all but howled it, as incredulous as it was to hear it. "There's just God moving in mysterious ways and not talking to any of us. None of us, angel, not even you!"

"Well, I'm going to change that," Aziraphale said. "I'm going to have a word with the Almighty and the Almighty will fix it."

Crowley was quite sure his jaw was off its hinge, with how his mouth hung open. "That won't happen. You're...you're so clever. How can someone as clever as you be so stupid?"

The words stung; he could tell. His forked tongue made way for his foot, but Aziraphale merely drew himself up, straightened his shoulders and gave Crowley a sad smile.

"I forgive you."

You couldn't just... _do_ that. It was hardly fair, in Crowley's opinion. You couldn't take those words and direct them at him. Something black felt like it had caved in this vessel's thin chest and he wheezed a breath. Sadness, despair, it all turned to anger in a blinking, because he still couldn't make Aziraphale **_see_**.

"Fine. I'm...I'm going home, Angel." His voice lost the thin thread of control. "I'm getting my things and when I'm off in the stars, I won't even think of you!"

Like pulling off a bandage. Surely.

He slammed his door as hard as he could, the Bentley roaring to life with a sound that was almost reproachful.

* * *

"It's our only option," Aziraphale said, as they sat on the bench in the cool Tadfield night. The snap of autumn was coming, and Crowley could almost smell the apples ripening in the air. Adam's influence, no doubt.

"We're going to die," Crowley said. It was said as he pressed his lips to the mouth of a wine bottle, taking a healthy swig. He passed the bottle to Aziraphale, watching the angel drink. It was a funny thing, facing sudden mortality. He thought he'd be more worried.

With everything that had happened, he was...well. He was coming to terms with it. He'd gotten to see the angel again, when he thought all was lost. He could be content with it.

"Maybe not," Aziraphale said. "It fits the prophecy."

"You _made_ it fit," Crowley said, accepting the bottle back. "I don't think that's how it...works."

"Maybe. But maybe now we're on our own?" Aziraphale said. "I mean, we've basically been on our own for this whole time, just you and me. Not even our respective sides cared until they thought it mattered."

"Mm," he said. The bus pulled up, miracled here with Crowley's sheer indifference. He’d asked for someone, anyone. His beloved car was gone, the M25 was still smoldering, but he had a feeling that it was all coming home to roost.

He was bone-weary, the effort it had taken to stop time was already taking its toll. Who knew how long they'd have to perform miracles? Maybe their...supply was being cut off. It was already a vague threat, but Crowley had no idea how much truth it held.

As the bus stopped in front of his flat, he and Aziraphale rose, their words gone. There wasn't much to discuss, not here, not now. He let them inside as the perplexed bus driver pulled away from the curb, not sure why he was here and not on his route. He'd already forgotten the angel and the demon existed.

"Right," Crowley said, clearing his throat.

"Indeed," Aziraphale echoed.

With the way the angel swayed against him, he had no doubt that he was just as tired. His vessel was brand new, created by the antichrist just a few hours ago. He'd need to rest whether he liked it or not.

"Come on, then," Crowley said. He gestured over his shoulder at Aziraphale, who trailed behind him to the bedroom. Spacious, dark, the large bed was enough for four but Crowley stopped at the foot. "Take the bed."

"I'm not tired, my dear boy, you should—" Aziraphale's words were interrupted by a huge yawn. "Oh...oh. All right. Where will you sleep?"

"Can miracle up a couch out there," Crowley said, shrugging.

"Absolutely not, this is your bed."

"I'm not going to make you sleep on the couch."

Aziraphale's brows pinched, and he snapped his fingers. A smaller bed, done up with cotton bedsheets and a tartan bedspread meant that Crowley was left staring at something that was both so very familiar and also a complete affront to his flat's aesthetic.

The chaos of it pleased him, even as he sputtered.

"Look," Aziraphale said, holding up a hand. He was already wearing a tartan dressing gown; Crowley was in physical pain at this point. "I'm far too weary for an argument, so let me say this. Don't walk out that door to make yourself sleep on a couch. Take your bed, I'll take this one. I...I just believe I won't be able to rest well unless I'm sure you're here."

Crowley stilled. Aziraphale wasn't looking at him, the angel's hazel eyes fixed on a point just beyond Crowley's left ear, but his meaning was clear. Crowley took a breath, smelling the angel in the air, here in his most private of dens. He didn't think it would ever leave.

"All right, angel," he said. "We'll stay tonight. Whatever happens tomorrow, it happens. But you have me tonight."

Aziraphale nodded. He climbed into bed, sitting up until Crowley miracled himself clean and into a pair of black silk pyjamas. As Crowley crawled into bed, he watched the lights lower fractionally, until they were dim and the room grew quiet with the sound of them both settling in for sleep.

He could just barely make out Aziraphale, his white-blond curls a beacon in the darkness.

"Till tomorrow," Aziraphale said softly.

"Yeah," Crowley said, feeling the fragility of the moment in the air like a physical thing.

If they could pull this off, they'd be legends; if not, they'd go as a pair. Either way, they'd be together. Crowley found he could live with that. He slipped into sleep, and for the first time in nearly a millennium, it was dreamless.


	24. Imagine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imagine, if you will—because most angels and demons cannot—what it must have been like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fill is Gabriel-centric, with no prompt involved. I was thinking about him a lot lately, and I know he's not exactly everyone's cup of tea, so feel free to skip this if you like.

Imagine.

Imagine, if you will—because most angels and demons cannot—what it must have been like.

Imagine it like music. You have all these voices, singing in harmony. The melody is rich and complex and beautiful. Everyone is happy, creating and placing and doing their assigned tasks, speaking on the same wavelengths.

There are so many of you, it’s like magic. It _is_ magic, and math, music and science—all of the things that humans put names to but can never truly understand, clumsy in their reasoning and missing the forest for the trees.

Light comes. It’s good, of course it is. She wouldn’t have it otherwise.

Stars and nebulas, planets and bodies celestial, all across the universe, spinning in infinity—hey, _hallelujah_.

Next, comes Her passion project—Earth.

It’s beautiful, of course. She wouldn’t have it otherwise. She fills it with stones, water and trees, makes animals and scatters them about, tells them to go forth and multiply. She creates a paradise, Her own personal getaway. She calls it Eden; you know it as the Garden.

You station angels along the walls, gatekeepers and guardians, to ensure that Her peace is unobstructed. They enjoy the newness of the exercise. She shows you Her newest creation.

She calls them Man and Woman. She smiles and tells you that they’re Her greatest creation so far, crafted in Her image. They’re good, as well. Or at least, you thought so. Others, they don’t. It’s the first time you’ve not reached a happy consensus.

One day, the music changes. One voice goes dissonant. Then another, and another.

Suddenly you have a hundred voices missing. Then a thousand.

The first rockets down in a blaze of fire, flames licking at his wings as he drops from Heaven, the Morning Star now dying, limping down in a spiral as he reaches Earth. It swallows him, and he keeps going.

You can hear his screams, over the music. You shield as many as you can behind your wings, but it’s too late. The song has changed.

More of your brothers and sisters follow him, down and **down** and **_down_** , and you can’t stop it. You can’t bring them back; they’re lost to your light and Her grace. Worse, they don’t want to be found.

Some Fall faster than others, but they still Fall. One memorable descent seemed to last forever, slowly making its way to the Pit.

Three quarters of the choir is silent, or worse, cacophonous. Dead and dying, Fallen.

You strike their names from the rolls, command the others to forget them—but you don’t allow yourself to forget. You _can’t_. You remember how the music sounds but you know it won't go back to how it was.

Not anymore. It’s a lesson, and one you take to heart.

It hurts Her the worst; She loved them like you loved them, and now they’re gone. It’s only natural that She withdraw. She’ll return when She is ready. She always has before. You’re confident in that.

You’re left to catalog the hurt; to heal the wounded and pick up the pieces. It takes a long while, but you’re not alone. Your brothers and sisters that remain, they band together behind you.

You promise that they’ll be safe under your care. You won’t let this happen again.

For a while, you flourish. You try and look on the bright side of things.

Then, there’s an apple.

It all goes to shit.

Because your brothers and sisters—no, not anymore, they aren’t. They’re twisted mockeries of themselves, hissing and spitting, their tattered wings dragging the ground behind them; worse, some of them have replaced them with other things. Scales and leathery wings, crawling things with multifaceted eyes, jaws that bite, claws that catch. All the creatures of the Earth that drag their bellies through the dust, they become fodder for ornamentation, a way to set themselves apart from what they once were.

A new word enters the lexicon.

Daímōn.

_Daemōn._

**_Demon_.**

They are different. They are Other.

They like it that way.

You can’t understand it.

Earth becomes a battleground. A war of attrition, where the number of souls claimed determines the winner. She has foreseen it, and left Words for you and your brothers and sisters. You deliver these words to Man, and they listen.

Sometimes.

Oftentimes, the demons offer much greater prizes, in human eyes. Wealth, virility, talent. Things that they could be happier without, but they choose regardless. Heaven offers all of that, in exchange for living in Her grace. You don’t understand why they would choose the former when the latter meant meeting Her, seeing Her joy.

(It doesn’t matter that you can barely remember what She looks like.)

Souls are won, souls are lost. It is a chess game; it’s poker in the dark. You’re struggling to keep up, to juggle this new form of warfare. Being unseen, moving in hidden ways beyond the forthright clash of swords against breastplates.

You are the Messenger. You were never good with covert.

So, you do as She did, and you delegate. You send angels down, sprinkle them out, give them niches and hidey-holes and send them forth to do good works.

Humans are simple, and yet entirely too complicated. You can never bring yourself to love them as She did; that is the one thing you cannot do. You can protect them, watch over them, as She commanded. But you can never love them.

In the end, you can’t exactly see the appeal.

But you can do this. You can do enough. Michael helps. So does Sandalphon. You have a good handle on this. Your angels in the field, they’re good at their jobs.

You win far more than you lose, from the reports. That’s important.

Time passes.

Civilizations rise and fall. Babel is a distant memory. You speak all their languages; you have to, in order to understand the goings on. You speak several that don’t exist anymore.

Gone are the days where you appeared in splendor to the likes of Man. “Fear not!” you cried. You wonder if they know that it twists in you, too, black and aching, like a living thing.

You weren’t made to feel fear. It sits like lead on your tongues. It poisons you.

Time passes.

Her voice has grown faint; not even the Metatron has heard from Her in many centuries. You turn to Her Word, for guidance.

The last chapters capture your attention the most; they offer you the solution that you were so desperately seeking.

The Final War. The end of all things.

It is a remedy for all that ails Heaven. If you win that fight, they’ll have to admit that they were wrong. That you were right. That you knew best, when you screamed as they pitched downward without a second glance.

You can help them, still. You can bring them _back_.

Your focus shifts.

Time passes.

You hear from the front lines that it’s happening. You get yourself into position; when it starts, you want to be able to move. Michael and Sandalphon both seem eager to kick this thing off.

There it is again. The dissonance. The voice that’s out of tune. Just enough, but you can hear it. You know that sound. You haven’t forgotten in the six thousand years you’ve been lining the pieces up to end this wretched world.

It’s one voice, but it’s loud enough to deafen you.

He comes to you, after the antichrist has been delivered. He thinks that he can change him for the better. Convert him from his evil purpose. Change him for the greater good. It’s an admirable goal, you tell him, but one that’s doomed to fail.

He seems determined to try.

It goes against the plan. It won’t work.

He’s been down there too long, you think. He’s gone native. He loves humanity, or at least their pleasures, sullying his form with gross matter. He eats and drinks, he covets.

Disgusting.

He’s also your best agent, with the highest rate of success in miracles. You don’t know how he does it, but things work out for him down there. So, you leave it. You can’t afford to train another operative in Soho, not with the demon Crowley running rampant. There’s no time.

You receive word that the antichrist has chosen his dog.

You know that there’s nothing that can stop it now. Things are moving forward according to the Plan, and one more dissonant voice will not break this Plan.

Then, there’s a book.

It all goes to shit.

You’re standing on the tarmac of an air base that hasn’t seen an airplane in over two decades, glaring at the dissonance in your ranks. He’s standing beside the antichrist, beside a demon. You’re also standing beside a demon, but yours is a professional courtesy, not millennia of fraternization. Not the demon standing beside your agent. He’s been up here too long himself, gone soft with it.

You remember him, too. Crowley. The very last to Fall, slowly making his way downward, almost as though he was reluctant to go anywhere.

Well, he’s here now, and it’s all a mess.

Beelzebub was always a reasonable being, for a demon. They’re going to speak to Adam’s father. That’ll kick start this real quick. You leave it in their hands, and go to muster the angels under your command.

Soon, everyone will get to come home.

Then, there’s a miracle.

It all goes to shit.

Time grinds to a halt just long enough that the child figures out how to deny his father, and Armageddon is a fading memory in every human’s psyche.

Heaven and Hell grinds to a halt for far longer than just a minute and fifteen seconds.

There is paperwork. So much paperwork. Your hand and head aches with the logistics of getting scores of angels to remove themselves from a battle-ready state.

It’s bedlam.

You need to satisfy their need for justice. Beelzebub gets in contact. They need to appease the demons’ sense of blood lust.

There’s going to be punishment handed out. It has to be done. Then you can kick this off for real.

Things don’t work out.

Aziraphale really has gone native. You’ve never seen an angel walk directly into hellfire, as though nothing was wrong. He treats it as a human might a pleasing, warm shower. He even makes an obscene little noise of contentment as he rolls his neck.

It’s a shitshow.

Time passes.

It really does fade from the human’s memories. Save for those who were at the air field, no one seems to remember that the skies rained fish and frogs and blood and that Atlantis rose from the depths. Humans are funny in that way.

You ponder this as you stand in front of a pond. You’re in St. James’s Park, as though the ducks squabbling over bread will give you that answer.

They don’t.

The Metatron doesn’t have the answer either. She’s not speaking to him. She doesn’t speak to anyone, anymore, and that creeping feeling of being lost doesn’t fade from you as you look out over the water.

A breeze caresses your hair, ruffling your vessel as you stand on the banks of the pond.

You remember when She walked with you through Eden, and you spoke of many things. You listened, but did you, really? When was the last time you stopped to listen, instead of talk? When was the last time you heard anything but empty promises fall from your lips as your brothers and sisters clung to you for guidance?

You close your eyes, and open yourself to the universe.

And there She is.

Where She’s always been.

You could fall to your knees, but that would break the connection you have with Her. She’s faint, but She’s there, like a staticky program on television, with the bunny ears twisted just the right way to pick up Her love, blanketing everything. The music you’ve missed, it’s here. You can feel it.

You could weep.

She’s here.

You can feel Her smiling at you. It makes you tremble. You’ve been lost for so long. You didn’t even know you’d forgotten your way.

She’s listening. She’s always listened. Somewhere along the way, you stopped speaking to Her, and just started doing. Maybe that was the problem. You were so busy following the Great Plan, maybe it _wasn’t_ the Ineffable Plan.

Aziraphale’s words don’t stick in your craw like they used to, not here. Not now. Now, all you can see is Her, in every little corner of this park, surrounding you, moving through you.

_I was wrong._ It’s not spoken, but She seems to hear it anyway. _How could I have been so wrong?_

Her smile is the sunshine, the warm rays bathing the pond in radiance.

_Precious Gabriel. Just imagine what you’ll be wrong about tomorrow._

You can’t wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been kicking this around for a bit and wanted to get it out of my system. I have been talking with bearfeathers a lot about Gabriel's motivations.
> 
> Also, I doodled on other things - I have an ongoing fic [Mnemosyne](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19376455/chapters/46104070), dealing with Crowley and Aziraphale losing their memories and being banished to earth.
> 
> I also have another short work, [Asymmetry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756156#main), exploring Aziraphale and Crowley sharing the same vessel during Armageddon't. Feel free to check both of those out. Thank you so much for reading!


	25. Spider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's a gangster until the spider starts jumping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:
> 
> waverly-earp asked:
> 
> "Me and the boys will handle it" + ineffable husbands with Anathema

Mrs. Eunice Tyler wrung her hands as Anathema stood on her mat, looking worriedly into the kitchen.

"Oh, I would have asked my dear Ronald, but he's out and about patrolling, you see." She frowned. "Are you sure you can—"

"Don't worry, ma'am," Anathema said. "Me and the boys will take care of it."

Crowley slouched behind her against the Bentley. "Oi, when did _we_ get roped into this?"

"Since _you_ swore a blue streak at my tulips and they retreated back into their bulbs!" She hissed over her shoulder at him.

"She has a point, my dear. Not all plants are as hardy as yours," Aziraphale said. He stood beside Anathema on the doorstep. "Hop along, we'll have this righted soon enough."

"They're weak, I did them a favor," Crowley muttered. But he pushed himself off his beloved car and trailed behind them into the house. "Besides, when did three grown—adult—dem—an— _beings_ need to be present to kill—"

"—capture!"

"—fine, _capture_." He rolled his eyes. "A single blessed spider?"

* * *

Crowley was pretty sure he was missing a tooth, knocked loose when Aziraphale shrieked like a banshee and elbowed him in the face trying to climb him like a sacred apple tree. Not that he would have minded any other time, but he'd been trying to avoid being leapt on by a spider the size of a serving platter.

No one had told them it had been one of Adam's pranks, and when Adam pranked, he thought big. Crowley stamped down the nearly unwelcome swell of pride at the joke, knowing that teaching Adam finer control of his powers when it came to irritating people had come back to bite him in the arse.

Wild hellhounds wouldn't be able to drag it out of him, either. Aziraphale would _scold_.

Still, he and the angel had been mostly useless, screaming their heads off as they were menaced by the spider; it had been Anathema who'd saved the day, dropping a plastic storage tub over the thing's head and sliding a piece of strong cardboard underneath it.

Now, it sulked, bristling at them from its plastic prison as it tried to menace them from beneath it. Anathema sat on it, just in case—it had been pretty adamant about getting at them, and the box had rocked in an alarming mockery of tipping over without weight upon it.

"Well, now what?" Aziraphale asked, fingers fiddling with his tie.

"We take the blessed thing outside and set it on _fire_ , that's what," Crowley growled.

"Oh, we can't, it hasn't hurt anyone." Anathema nodded along with the angel.

"Yet," Crowley reminded them. "It's only a matter of time before that thing comes back in looking for someone's chest cavity to nest in."

"Oh, don't be crass—" Aziraphale started, only to shriek as Anathema went tumbling off the plastic bin when the spider charged the wall. It hissed, leaping at them.

Inches from his face, it exploded, sending pulpy gore across the cellar in a wild arc. He was pretty sure he’d gotten some in his mouth.

"Crowley!" Anathema snapped. "We could have still caught it!"

"Not me," he protested. He spat. Definitely some in his mouth. Eurgh.

"But—"

"I'm afraid he's right," Aziraphale said, sheepishly.

"Good lord." Anathema sighed and shook her head. "Well, let's get this cleaned up."

Crowley rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. He really should talk to Adam about his pranks.

Hell could learn a thing or two.


	26. Ascetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Such a simple man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr Prompt:
> 
> Anonymous said:  
> For the prompt list! #146 for good omens ?
> 
> 146\. “You only care about football, beer, and raking leaves.”

“You only care about footie, beer, and raking leaves.” Mister Crowley said it with the same amount of mild astonishment that was usually reserved for a rather good goal.

Mister Young just shrugged. “Of course, what else is there?”

Tony had been his friend for an innumerable amount of years. He remembered befriending the rather odd doctor at the birth of his son, passing by him at the nunnery. A good sort, he’d chosen to make him the godfather to his newborn Adam, and hadn’t regretted it.

(Not that he would know, but that was because this was how Adam had decided it should be, much to the demon Crowley’s chagrin and slight irritation whenever Mister Young had managed to rope him into yet another three-hour conversation about how Arsenal was doing in the season.)

“Well, good music. Rock and roll, and—”

“Pft,” Mister Young said. “I leave that for the kids. Adam likes it, but I don’t see the point.”

Tony didn’t seem to know what to do with that information, his mouth working for a moment without sounds.

“Good food, then,” he said. “Nice restaurants or—”

“Oh, Diedre lays a nice table,” he said, waving a hand. “I should know, I pay for the bloody food. Lovely Sunday roasts, though, woman knows her gravy.”

Tony seemed equally baffled by that. “So…nothing strikes your fancy?”

“Why would it?” Mister Young said, leaning on his rake. “I’ve got footie to watch when I’ve free time, and chores to keep my hands busy. I’ve got a wife and son. I’ve got a good salary and quiet neighbors. I’m utterly content. Why would I want for anything else?”

“Hm,” Tony said, seeming to digest that.

“Why d’you ask?” Mister Young said. “Something gone on with Mister Fell?”

“What?” Tony asked, gaze snapping up and toward Mister Young.

“I said, Mister Fell. Did something happen?” Mister Young asked.

“Oh. No.” Tony looked over to where his partner, Mister Fell, was teaching Pepper how to do a magic trick. “No, I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“Good lad,” Mister Young replied. He nudged Tony. “Hand me that landscaping bag behind you, yeah?”

He got back to his leaves, and his conversation about Arsenal’s bid to acquire Kieran Tierney. He only realized the bag had a hole long after Tony and his partner had left to head for their flat.

Shame. He’d have to rake again tomorrow. Well, it would be a nice day. They were always nice in Tadfield. Part of the appeal, you know.


	27. Arguments for Beds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale owning any sort of living space is a rather new development, in hindsight. He can certainly see the appeal, however.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamidoodles said:  
> 73\. “Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?” // Ineffable Husbands

“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?” Aziraphale asked, leaning against the door frame.

“I’m hardly naked,” Crowley replied. His coils sheened in the low light from the lamp, the monstrous snake wound into an almost knot-like shape at the foot of the bed. “This was where you moved the heating mat, anyway.”

“Hm.” Aziraphale said.

The bedroom was a fairly new addition to the bookshop. Aziraphale had seen the appeal back in 1929, when he’d spent a lovely winter holed up in the Swiss mountains. The cabin had been cozy, and he’d seen the appeal of having a bed—especially when one read as much as he did—and he’d quite fallen in love with the idea of having one of his own. It was a perfectly pleasant place to spend a dark and stormy night, with a cup of cocoa and whatever book he happened to have at hand. He’d come home and spent several months miracling a living space above the book shop, with a bedroom and several closets for clothes he dearly hoped would return to fashion. (He was awfully fond of the embroidery on some of his frock coats, after all.)

To deter customers from its privacy, he’d placed signage, as well as several doors that opened into brick walls, about the shop.

Crowley was an even newer addition, the demon rarely treading about upstairs. Often, they spent more time over at Crowley’s flat—or downstairs in the back room, where the couch was squashy and quite large enough for two. Now, however, he’d found the demon upstairs, in bed, and he watched the lamplight flicker off of nearly iridescent scales.

“Are you coming to bed or not?” Crowley said. He managed to look sleepy even without the convenience of eyelids in this form, swaying his blunt serpentine head back and forth slowly, as though to tempt Aziraphale closer and under the duvet.

“Hm, yes, all right,” Aziraphale conceded, the temptation hardly a temptation at all. He snapped his fingers and prepared himself for bed, getting all the tools necessary for a long night of reading. Cocoa, the copy of _Barchester Towers_ he’d been reading before he’d gone looking for the demon, and a pair of tartan pyjamas meant that he was quite prepared to settle in for the night.

“Budge up,” he mumbled, shoving at Crowley’s coils. The serpent made a grumbling noise but slid away, down and off the bed so that he could curl up properly once Aziraphale was situated. Climbing into bed, Aziraphale adjusted himself, plumping the pillows around his back and settling in before he patted the duvet. “All right, up you get.”

There was the sound of covers shifting, and instead of Crowley sliding up on top of the bed, he slid beneath the blankets, seeking out Aziraphale’s warmth and curling up beside him. Aziraphale had read once that a snake stretching out beside you was it judging on whether or not they’d be able to swallow you whole; he’d never felt the need to be afraid of that in Crowley’s presence, however.

The snake’s blunt head poked out from beneath the covers, curling close to Aziraphale, resolving itself into Crowley’s no less beloved, more humanoid form. He pressed his face against Aziraphale’s neck, and the angel stroked his plump fingers over Crowley’s bare shoulders.

“You _are_ naked,” he said, as though he’d won an argument.

“Am not,” Crowley said. He sounded smug. “I have on _exactly_ one sock.”

“Oh, good lord,” Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes. Crowley laughed as Aziraphale put his book to the side and turned to him. Yet another excellent reason to own a living space, Aziraphale reasoned as he claimed Crowley’s smirking mouth with his own.

Besides, he’d moved the heating mat on purpose. It was only a matter of time before Crowley found it.


	28. Evenings are for Cocoa and Contemplation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam likes his new godfathers. It would be a shame if something happened to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt:
> 
> bearfeathers said:  
> 94\. "Did they hurt you?" Adam & Ineffable Husbands.

“Did they hurt you?” Adam asked.

Crowley almost dropped the spoon he was using to dollop just a little more whipped cream onto their cocoa. Adam had the sweet tooth of all thirteen-year-old boys who’d just hit a growth spurt; namely, he was prepared to eat everything in sight without so much as flinching. Aziraphale had always been a fan of extra everything on his servings, so Crowley had just started prepping their cocoa the same way.

He, himself, was having a cup of black coffee with a healthy shot of whisky in it, much to Aziraphale’s nose-wrinkling. (Though he doubted the angel would complain quite so robustly when he tasted the Irish Coffee he was actually getting while Adam was getting plain cocoa.)

The question, however, had made him pause. Just a fraction too long, just a fraction too careful in choosing his response.

While Adam couldn’t read minds—at least, Crowley didn’t _think_ he could, even with helping the lad explore his skill-sets after school for the last year and a half. Adam had never shown aptitude for mind-reading. Despite not reading minds directly, he was damnably intuitive, even hyper-perceptive.

“No,” he said at last. “They roughed us up a bit, but they didn’t hurt us.”

There was something…wrong about lying to Adam. Perhaps it was part of the antichrist defense system. Crowley found he could do it, but it took a tremendous amount of effort to do so. It took every trick he had, sliding around the truth, giving it a glance while he mixed up his excuse, and setting the lie right next to it so that it looked acceptable enough to even get the words past his lips.

(Aziraphale had the same reaction, funnily enough. The angel was such a bad liar ordinarily, though, that anything above a Harmless Fib was a lost cause anyway.)

“Really?” Adam asked.

He was getting length in his limbs, looking much like a colt that was going through its first yearling growth spurt. His jackets and shirts were becoming smaller, showing three to four extra inches of wrist. He’d likely be even with Crowley’s chosen height when his body decided he was done growing.

His face still retained a little of the round innocence that baby-fat provided, still cute and cherubic.

“Mm,” Crowley said. “We switched bodies because we knew what was in store for the other.”

“But not for yourselves,” Adam concluded.

“Oh, no, _I_ knew.” Crowley shrugged, adding cinnamon to the top of Adam’s cocoa. “My lot aren’t terribly creative. I had several lifetimes of torture waiting for me, if they hadn’t decided on the holy water.”

“So you sent Aziraphale to Hell, because you knew you were going to be tortured?” Adam’s dark brows knit.

“No,” Crowley said. “I thought they were going to make him Fall, so I was going to take that for him, then come and get him.”

“So…you’re both idiots who went haring off without a plan, and just decided to wing it.” Adam’s conclusion was hurtful, but not exactly wrong.

Crowley snorted, instead of being offended. “Imagine what we could have done if we were at all competent.”

“If any of you were competent, you mean,” Adam said. He swiped his cocoa from the tray, taking a healthy sip after blowing on it to the perfect temperature. Crowley had no doubt it wouldn’t burn his tongue, simply because Adam wanted it that way. “You’d think Heaven and Hell would have checked.”

Crowley paused, then shrugged. The kid had a point.

“Have you two talked about it?” Adam asked.

“Mm, not as such.” Crowley said. He plated some biscuits and other treats that Aziraphale liked; the angel’s sweet tooth was a rival to Adam’s own. “Best he not get the details. He was far more fond of Heaven than it was of him. Pillars of hellfire don’t exactly scream ‘come on home for Sunday dinner’, you know?”

“He’s going to ask,” Adam said. “Eventually.”

“Well,” Crowley said, fidgeting with the plate and finally plopping it on the tray where their cups rested. “That’s a bridge we’ll have to burn when we cross it, now isn’t it?”

Adam shook his head, but he held the door open to the back room of the shop, where a fire was keeping the autumn chill from the shop to a tolerable level—far from where a potential customer might feel welcome. Crowley settled on the couch, long legs splayed out at angles that might not be entirely possible naturally, but the chaos of it pleased him.

Aziraphale received his cup with a pleased murmur, taking a sip and letting his eyes widen at the bite of alcohol.

“Are all of these doctored?” he asked, casting a disapproving look at Adam’s cup.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out, Angel,” Crowley said languidly, taking a sip of his own doctored coffee. “It’ll put hair on his chest.”

Adam licked whipped cream from his upper lip and grinned at Aziraphale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is a little shit. Adam can be, too. I just like the idea that he chose them to stick around, thinking these two dorks would be useful to have around.


	29. Of the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 
>       _Wont you teach me how to love and learn,
>     There'll be nothing left for me to yearn,
>     Think of me and burn and let me hold your hand,
>     Oh yeah-ah-eh,
>     I don't want to face the world in tears,
>     Please think again, I'm on my knees,
>     Sing that song to me,
>     No reason to repent._
>     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bearfeathers said:  
> 93\. "You didn't just wake me up at 2 am because you were 'in the mood.'" Ineffable Husbands.
> 
> Warnings for this fill: Basically smuts and Aziraphale being the hedonist he is, nothing to see here, carry on.

Crowley, in general, was not a light sleeper. When they’d begun whatever this was between them, this culmination of a dance that had come to mean courtship in all the important ways, he had merely dozed, always ready to snap awake. A wrong breath from Aziraphale, the crinkle of a fresh page, even a shift on the mattress that felt wrong was enough to rouse him.

It had been defensive, in the beginning.

Now, as Aziraphale slid into bed behind him, Crowley barely stirred. That had been a major victory on the angel’s part, finding a way to make Crowley feel safe and wanted enough to sleep as deeply as he liked.

It hadn’t even been through any effort on his part; it had merely taken time.

The demon slept in as little as possible; it might be due to Crowley running hot or it might just be his natural proclivity to enjoy the feel of the fabric against his vessel’s skin. His usual attire consisted of soft black cotton sleep pants and a broad smile if Aziraphale was joining him. Aziraphale never did ask, simply enjoying the sight of Crowley sprawled out in bed, his hair like finely sheened copper wire against the crisp bedding. His vessel took over in slumber, as vessels did, and his breathing was deep and even. Every so often he snuffled in his sleep, and Aziraphale felt the corners of his mouth tilt up.

There was always, always affection for Crowley in him, deep and flowing from the heart of him. That hadn’t changed since they’d met, though the forms it took had been different then. Now, it was love that he could admit to, holding it carefully against himself until the time had been right.

It was good. _This_ was good.

He’d always been a hedonist, especially when it came to enjoying the world around him. It had been no different when Crowley had become part of that world, so long ago. Before, his enjoyment had been limited to glances and gazes during their furtive lunches or talks. Now, he had unfettered access to just…enjoy the time spent with Crowley, and watching him at rest was a particular joy that he indulged in, quite often.

Aziraphale had taken to sleeping at more regular intervals, but he’d never enjoyed it like he did his food. What he _did_ enjoy was the sight of a shirtless Crowley, splayed out on his belly with his legs tangled in the sheets. He took in the shape of the demon’s back, the rise and fall of his chest as he slumbered, the silken play of muscle beneath the pale skin.

Crowley was art, of the finest caliber. It was a wonder there had been no paintings or sculptures of him that he’d been able to find. Perhaps, he thought, it was because Crowley was more solitary in nature. While he’d been known to speak with and become friendly with any number of human writers, artists, and poets, Crowley preferred to keep his meddling to the big picture. He loved humans, as did Aziraphale, but in an abstract way.

He’d once gone on about the internet for an entire day, espousing the wonders of the thing. Never once did he really mention who’d created it or for what purpose. It was enough that it existed, like television or automobiles.

Now, though, the demon was at rest—one of his favorite things. He’d never been awake before noon on a good day, and Aziraphale understood that, in an abstract way; most of Crowley’s nefarious activities took place under cover of darkness, as cover of darkness was good for those sorts of things. After the world hadn’t ended, Crowley had taken to long stretches of sleep during the night.

Aziraphale knew to let sleeping snakes lie, but he had particular plans for this serpent. So it was that after a long time gazing at the fine muscle of Crowley’s bare back, admiring the way the red of his hair became fine and almost translucent at the nape of his neck…

Aziraphale’s lips were gentle, trailing against Crowley’s spine. The demon didn’t stir, merely sighing out softly in sleep, his eyelids fluttering. The angel tried again, mouthing lightly against Crowley’s warm skin. The sensation was heady, as it always was—skin to skin contact was certainly a new thing for Aziraphale to indulge in, despite the rumors of a gentleman’s club making him anything but gentlemanly. This was something he’d only ever wished to share with the demon sleeping beside him.

Now that he could, he was determined to make up for lost time.

“Mmrph.” Crowley’s voice was heavy, drowsy. It was rusty, the sound of someone who was pulled from deep slumber. “Angel?”

It was a sweet sound, one that Aziraphale relished pulling from the demon. The softest, quietest question, answered with a hum from Aziraphale, his hands sliding along the skin of Crowley’s back. His lips trailed up, against the nape of that beloved neck, watching the way gooseflesh crawled up Crowley’s spine at his caress.

Crowley gave the softest of moans. It was a sound Aziraphale would never tire of hearing, the sweetness of it tinged in his own longing like a particularly good cake drenched in honey straight from the comb. He would sup them straight from Crowley’s lips forever if he got the chance—it was a particularly favorite sound of his, breathed against his ear, his neck, his back. His fingers muffling them, his mouth drinking them down, his vessel feeling them vibrate against its chest.

Aziraphale hummed again, indulgent as he swept his hands lightly down Crowley’s spine once more. It was a nice spine, he thought, just one too many vertebrae to make him entirely human, like those lovely golden eyes of his. It was part of what made him Crowley, which made it all the more precious to Aziraphale, more worthy of his attention.

“I know you didn’t wake me in the middle of the night—” Crowley’s breathy words were cut off as Aziraphale pressed his lips against his spine once more, the demon arching into him. “—just because you were in the mood.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale said. Words had always been Crowley’s strong suit, his silver forked tongue catapulting them into this future with just a few whispered words. Aziraphale was better with…well, motion. Constantly in motion, constantly working against reaching out and touching, holding, caressing.

Now? He could do as he pleased, and what pleased him right in this moment was to nip, just _so_ , at Crowley’s shoulder blade, to feel the demon jerk against him, hips rutting into the mattress as Aziraphale soothed the bite with his tongue. He circled where the wing joints were, knowingly, as precise as if it were his own back he were touching, laving them with kisses and nips and leaving Crowley a squirming mess beneath him, sinuous undulations against him as the demon tried to catch up to where Aziraphale already was.

Black feathers shivered in the air between them, on the cusp of manifestation, and Aziraphale loved that, too. Sleek and lovely, held poised as Crowley trembled on the precipice of fight or flight.

Breathtaking.

Crowley’s wings hadn’t been seen often in their relationship. He’d never felt the need to bring them out, never felt the urge to stretch them and take flight. Pinions rustled in the air, a whisper of a whisper, like a secret heard from another room’s keyhole.

He showed them more often these days, simply because Aziraphale had asked.

_How lovely your wings are, my dear._

_Such a pity I can never groom them for you like I ought._

Crowley had always loved to please him. It had just taken much longer for Aziraphale to come to terms with that in certain areas. Now?

Now, Aziraphale’s pleasure stemmed mostly from enjoying his time with the demon beneath his hands. In all areas of his life, where he should have been all along. Dinner, walks in the park. The failed attempt at learning to dance together last week, the plans to try again the next. It was all here, breathing in the dark with him, his love for Crowley unfurling like a blanket and coating everything in his life, dipping it in gold where once it was pale and wan.

“I couldn’t resist, my dear,” he said, his voice husky. He spoke the words against the long, beloved spine of his serpent. “You always were excellent at temptation, I just don’t think you realize you’re doing it, half the time.”

Crowley’s voice was a strangled sob as Aziraphale’s words pressed against his skin.

“Oh, I do love you,” Aziraphale sighed, sliding his hands forward, beneath Crowley and palmed against his chest, fingers tracing against beloved skin and imperfections that Crowley insisted were factory issue but Aziraphale knew were marks of the demon settling into the vessel. Freckles and stretch marks, old scars and new skin from shedding, all things that were quintessentially Crowley and thus precious. “Always.”

“Angel—” Crowley said, but it was lost in a garbled noise as Aziraphale pressed them back to chest, nuzzling against the curve of Crowley’s ear.

“Yes?” Aziraphale said, his voice holding a husky note of smugness that was hard to hide, not when he knew exactly what was happening to Crowley now, the other’s thighs quivering as he resisted pushing back and against the angel, even as Aziraphale’s hands slid down his breastbone, across his belly. Teasing, loving, not quite possession and not quite absolution, but a heady and frankly blasphemous sensation that was freedom for them both in all the ways that truly mattered.

They’d always existed best when treading the razor’s edge of the rules they were meant to follow, after all.

Crowley’s voice was quiet, seeming muffled in the dark. “I want to see you.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, ever indulgent.

Crowley shifted, Aziraphale drawing back just long enough so that the demon could roll to his back, his eyes locked on the angel. He knew they were, even in the blackness of the room, because Crowley’s stare had a weight he’d never been able to shake, not that he wanted to remove it now. Aziraphale ran fingers through his own hair, leaving tiny points of light dancing in his curls, faerie fire that illuminated the room as softly as his feathers that fluttered just out of view.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said. The word was a prayer, a curse, benediction and damnation—it was terribly _beautiful_ , falling from Crowley’s mouth as such. The angel leaned in, supping the word from Crowley’s lips, eager to breathe in the curse and breathe out a blessing.

Perfect harmony.

The angel straddled Crowley’s hips, knees pressed against him solidly as he beamed down at him.

“You are…” Crowley huffed a laugh, his eyes wide, luminous in Aziraphale’s radiance, pupils blown black with desire and not a little awe. “Did you climb into bed naked?”

“Might’ve done,” Aziraphale admitted, still smug as he felt the slide of Crowley’s palms against him, his skin prickling with that peculiar sense of _reaching_ , as though he were trying to absorb more of Crowley against him, clinging to him, each inch of his skin seeming jealous when another part of him got the pleasure of the demon’s touch.

“You’re going to discorporate me one of these days,” he said, chuckling as he kneaded Aziraphale’s thighs, thumbs turning delicious circles against the angel’s hipbones. Aziraphale gave a pleased, almost giddy roll of his hips, pulling a string of curses from Crowley’s beloved mouth. “I saw your bare forearms in the 18th century and I almost didn’t recover.”

Aziraphale laughed, the sound making Crowley buck against him—how lovely—and merely leaned in to bite at Crowley’s jaw. “Flatterer.”

“I’d missed the sight of your wrists,” Crowley said, the words a breathy moan as Aziraphale nuzzled at the line of his throat.

“I’ve worn less,” Aziraphale said. He could feel the way Crowley clutched at him, as though he were drowning and Aziraphale were air. He brushed his thumb across one of Crowley’s nipples, and it was like he’d touched a live wire to Crowley’s spine, the demon jerking up to meet him.

“Not since Rome,” Crowley replied, his voice wrecked. Aziraphale conceded that by settling back against the tops of Crowley’s thighs. Crowley responded beautifully, as he always did. He rolled his hips up and against Aziraphale, the motion merely a ghost of the things they’d experienced together and yet still enough to make Aziraphale feel a gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach.

He kissed Crowley then, the hunger manifesting in the bite he left against Crowley’s lower lip.

“How is it I’m never sated with you?” Aziraphale asked. “We could do this for days—have done—and yet each time it’s—”

“—new, and different,” Crowley said, choking the words out, wrecked and wanting. “I don’t know, angel. I don’t—”

His sleep trousers were gone with a snap of Aziraphale’s fingers, cast aside into a corner of the room and away, freeing Crowley to the air and to Aziraphale’s greedy touch. Because it was greedy, what he felt for Crowley, each time they did this. It was his. It had always been his, ever since the Garden. He’d held this in his hands, cupped it close, kept the flame lit even in the deep watches of the night.

Alive. Here and warm and alive, with Crowley. This was what he liked the best, breathing in love and exhaling Crowley’s name, for they were one and the same for Aziraphale.

It was new, it was different, it was…good. It had always been good, this thing between them.

Even without this, in _spite_ of this, it was always good, what they had between them. No matter how they fought, no matter how they tried, they were always better, together.

Aziraphale’s breath shivered in the air as he sank down over Crowley’s blunt length, shuddering at the feeling of delicious fullness that only got better as they got more experienced at it. He shifted, adjusting, Crowley’s fingers on his hips near-gouging as he dug his nails in, and somehow that was delicious, too. Pleasure near turning to pain, burning through him and up synapses that were never meant to fire this way, not for him.

And yet, here he was, starting to move in slow, shallow arcs as Crowley sobbed his name. It was enough to make him weep, but he didn’t, the emotion bubbling over into something deeper, a river that flowed through him and nurtured his heart—all for the being beneath him, for him to rest his weary bones on the grassy banks, sheltered.

“Oh, Crowley,” he whispered, for it was all he could manage, his wings covering them from view as though he’d felt the rain on the Eastern Wall once more. Shadowy feathers painted the wall behind him; below him Crowley’s wings burst forth in answer, unfurling beneath them as the demon rose and fell with Aziraphale’s steady, inexorable movements.

He was the drip of water against stone, the grit of sea waves crashing against cliffs. He couldn’t be stopped, couldn’t be reasoned with, not here. This was his, this was Crowley’s, this was theirs, and it would always be theirs, so long as his consciousness and Crowley’s existed, one soul poured into two vessels.

He’d defied Heaven for this, thumbed his nose at Hell. No one was going to take it from them.

Crowley cried out, Aziraphale dipping to catch him. Always to catch him. Pulling him close and wrapping his wings about them, the angel pressed his lips to Crowley’s. Beloved. Always beloved.

His feathers rustled, warm and languid as he slowly tucked them out of the way, back into their pocket. Crowley did the same, with a little groan. The mess was hardly an issue when one was ethereal, and he snapped his fingers as he settled next to Crowley. They were freshly scrubbed, as though coming straight from a bath, a light and soapy scent in the air.

Crowley huffed a little laugh, golden eyes on Aziraphale. Oh, but he could drink in that adoring expression on Crowley’s face, like he couldn’t believe he was here. It was endearing and heartbreaking in the same breath and it was all for him. Aziraphale pressed his lips to Crowley’s knuckles.

“Remind me to have you wake me up like that more often,” he said, his voice a little hoarse.

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, feeling Crowley’s lips against his temple, where the little fairy firelights still danced like miniature stars.

“You never did tell me what you woke me for,” Crowley said.

“I wanted to watch the sun rise with you,” Aziraphale said. He gestured at the window, the shade sliding up to let in the pink of the morning. “But I know how much you like your sleep, so I thought I’d make it worth your while.”

“Hm,” Crowley said, the sheets pooled around their waists as the sun rose over Soho, pink and orange and limned in gold. “You could have just asked.”

“We both know that’s not as fun,” Aziraphale said, primly.

Crowley’s laughter was quiet, but it filled Aziraphale to the brim, and he poured the feeling back into the demon, kissing him soundly as dark turned into day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in too deep, save yourself.


	30. The Saunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley walks Like That because he's Crowley, and that's perfectly acceptable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prevalenceofinsanity said:
> 
> Why does Crowley walk Like That? Like Crowley, darling, I understand living for the #aesthetic but you could always just find skinny jeans that don't have the seams coming up at an awkward angle so you have to swing your legs round like your invisible cat is ruining your runway walk.

Crowley walks Like That because he is a snake first and foremost. He never had a need for limbs that  _worked_ (at least in the way we think of them working) up in Heaven, and so when he Fell, he became used to working his way about as a snake.

Then? He gets assigned a temptation in the Garden. This means he needs a humanish vessel, so he’s assigned one of those, as well. Hell isn’t...great...at explaining how these work. Nor are they great at copying Heaven’s designs for vessels—there always seems to be a bit of the demon slipping through (look at Ligur and Hastur, for example—Ligur barely tries to conceal what he is, Hastur has a bit more effort in but still looks Other). Crawly is in a freshly minted body, so not only does he not have practice in concealing what he is, he’s now upright in this vessel.

A body that has Legs.

Now, Crawly has no experience with Leg. He’s been shimmying his way about since he Fell, and it’s worked okay for what he needed it to do. So instead of doing this sort of horizontal thing and getting his wiggle on, he’s got a whole new center of gravity, a whole new way of moving, and he’s got to get it down before he does this temptation.

Now. Imagine Crawly’s first attempts at walking. Because they’re absolutely  _hilarious._

Too much shimmy, he locks his knees while he walks because he’s never had to  _use them_  before, as he’s never had a knee and doesn’t know what it’s for, exactly. He watches the Man and the Woman, not yet Adam and Eve, not yet given names, not yet infamous. They don’t help; they run and jump and play and laugh, and all Crawly has to show for it is jealousy, he can’t walk, let alone run, and he’s tired of crawling about on his brand-new hands and knees and suchlike.

It isn’t Dignified.

Falling flat on his face in the Garden is not how he wants to make his first impression, no sir. So instead of being humanoid, he reverts back to what he knows best—and approaches Eve like a snake. (Yes, he tried Legs in that form too, to disastrous results.)

Now, the humans fleeing the Garden means that he’s actually got to practice—really, it would be a dead giveaway if he showed up as a giant serpent every time—but now he’s not on a timetable, so he can take a quick breather to go and  ~~flirt with~~  ask questions of the Principality on the Eastern Wall. There’s no need to be humanish around him, yet Crawly  _feels_  the need to do so, because, really, it’s rude flaunting one’s true form about someone who has a vessel. So, he goes back to the new, hated body with its new, hated Legs.

But a funny thing happens. Aziraphale—for that’s what the angel is called, Crawly discovers after poking around a bit—doesn’t mock him for his movements. He doesn’t censure the tiny, shuffling steps Crawly takes to take shelter beneath the proffered wing.

Crawly finds, to his surprise, that he’s grateful the angel doesn’t mention it.

Time passes, as it does, and Crowley gets a new name and he gets better at Legs. But not by much. Enough to be passable, and that’s as much effort as he puts into it, almost sullenly, a  _there, I am so good at Leg, you would not believe how good I am at Leg._

But Aziraphale never makes mention of it.

Time continues to pass, as it does. Crowley’s star is on the rise, the head office loves him, even though he’s doing very little actual work. He’s never felt the need to get better at Leg. In his opinion, he’s  _amazing_  at Leg. He walks, he has the Bentley, he doesn’t need to walk far. It’s Good Enough.

Eventually, the End of the World begins, kicked off against Crowley’s better judgment. Long after it’s been halted, with Adam safely back in Tadfield, no one mentions his walking. It’s the furthest thing from anyone’s mind, so he’s not really considered that the way he walks is strange.

When Aziraphale  _finally_  mentions it, they’re actually dining at the Ritz.

"You know, my dear," Aziraphale says, patting his lips with his napkin. They've just finished afternoon tea, but it's likely that they'll end up lingering until dinner, because they're just Like That. "That was perhaps the hardest part of the deception. Your walk is very unique."

Crowley is immediately defensive. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're so loose with your hips, like you haven't actually got any joints there at all, and that your knees work on a wide swivel," Aziraphale says. He takes a sip of his champagne, not seeming to notice that he's wounded Crowley mortally in this moment. "I've always liked it, but I've never taken into consideration how difficult it is to replicate it."

"W— I— _You_ —" Crowley's sputtering now, spoon dangling from his long fingers as he gestures with it. "It's _walking_ , it's not **_hard_**."

"Of course not, my dear," Aziraphale says. "But yours is so very much a part of you that it was hard to learn to do it. Even after all these millennia watching you do it."

That, of course, draws Crowley's attention to the fact that Aziraphale has been watching him walk since the Garden, and while he hasn't made any sort of mention about it, he's noticed. Aziraphale has just chalked it up to another thing that makes him Crowley, and finds it endearing.

In reality, neither of them will ever probably come to the conclusion that Crowley's rather good imagination is to blame for the reason he walks like his thighs have been going through a drawn out, viciously contested divorce and shown up absolutely plastered to the same family function. He believes he's good at Leg, so he is.

And that's perfectly okay. Aziraphale loves him, and that's what matters.


	31. Wine and Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 
>       _We go to a party and everyone turns to see
>     This beautiful lady that's walking around with me
>     And then she asks me, Do you feel all right?
>     And I say, "Yes, I feel wonderful tonight."_
>     
> 
> Eric Clapton, _Wonderful Tonight_
> 
> Aziraphale has always been a great admirer of beauty, in all forms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minwrites said:  
> Ineffable husbands post apocalyptic gift giving
> 
> Notes for this fill: female presenting!Crowley, and proper pronouns as such.

Crowley studied her reflection in the mirror. She’d always been angular, it was just her choosing to appear such—whip-thin and hungry, a predator—and now was no exception. She smoothed the lipstick onto her lips, the color a wine-dark almost purple and matte, perfect for drawing the eye as she spoke. It plumped her lips, bringing the whole ensemble into focus. Red lips, white teeth, just a hint of sharpness, a suggestion of fangs behind the façade—

She really couldn’t help herself, Aziraphale thought, standing in the doorway. She’d always been Original Sin, but he had a feeling she wasn’t meant to tempt him—at least at first. Now, though, looking at her seated like a boudoir painting at the vanity that had manifested itself in the corner one day and had never quite left, he was fairly sure this was at least partially for him. A sleek black sheath dress hugged Crowley’s frame, the swell of her hips and breasts just a suggestion, long pale legs crossed at the ankle as she studied her makeup.

He wondered if she realized how attractive she was when she was at rest like this, her hair falling in soft curls to the middle of her back, not yet placed where she wanted it, deep dark red like waves of burgundy crashing against the pale skin of her shoulders, exposed by the open back of the dress. He could follow the column of her slender throat with his eyes in the mirror, tracing it as surely as he would like to do with his hands.

There was a tenderness in his gaze, but also a heat, and he couldn’t explain how it hadn’t just been awoken since Armageddon had been thwarted. Well, he could, but he was sure it would sound silly to Crowley to learn that he’d always liked this side of her, especially that brief glimpse he’d gotten, dark and inviting, wearing the himation and peplos of Greece like it would melt away at a touch. It had been a thought that had perplexed him, at the time. She was fetching, by all means, but he hadn’t been ready to accept that she was desirable to him because it was _Crowley_ and not because she was in the process of temptation.

Now, he was willing to look on the time with a sort of rueful nostalgia. He hadn’t been able to stay and thwart her; he’d been pulled away to bless another portion of the world. Now? Now, he had all the time in the world to admire Crowley in all her iterations.

It had been almost three years since Armageddon, by his count, though the event itself was fading from most minds. It was good, both of them had agreed. The less people remembered, the farther away life was getting from that iteration of it, meaning it was less likely to be recalled and actually brought to fruition.

Which reminded him of the wrapped package he held. The weight of the parcel suddenly felt like a stone from the wall of Eden, though he’d hefted that well enough—but that hadn’t been charged with such Intent. The angel smoothed his hands down his waistcoat, clearing his throat. Her lambent yellow eyes flickered towards him, her lips quirking in the half-smile that he loved so well.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” she asked, her pinkie smoothing away a stray swatch of her lipstick.

He glanced down at his usual clothing. “No, no. I wanted to give this to you before I freshened up. I’ll have to…spruce up a bit to look like I’m remotely in your league, my dear.”

She gave a throaty laugh, one that sent frissons of want down his spine as her amusement caused his stomach to flip.

“Help us with this, then?” she asked, pointing at the wavy mass of her hair. “I could use a miracle but it seems…cheap.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, stepping behind her as he set his package aside, just for the moment. “How would you like it?”

“Mm,” Crowley hummed, studying herself. “Up, but messy? Like we’re looking good, but not trying too hard.”

“I’m convinced you never have to try hard,” Aziraphale said, and plunged his hands into the waves of Crowley’s hair. Under the demon’s direction, he soon had it looking right, with pins in plenty to keep it looking artfully mussed. A braid circling a messy bun, topped with a gold-and-pearl concoction of combs that gleamed in her hair like a coronet, it lifted the hair from her shoulders and tucked it all away, framing her face. She took over, fussing with little strands of hair at the sides, and Aziraphale let his fingers linger on the column of her neck, feeling the heat she radiated against his fingers.

“What do you think?” she asked at last, seeming satisfied.

“Lovely, though you always are,” he said, watching the apples of her cheeks darken with the praise. It pleased her, no doubt, because she glanced away, her lips curved just the slightest bit upward. It warmed him, his own smile indulgent and satisfied.

“Help me with my zipper?” she asked, tugging at her dress.

He leaned down, pressing his lips to the join of her neck and shoulder, his fingers finding the tiny zipper of the dress and tugging it slowly—

“Angel,” she said, her laughter throaty. “ _Up_.”

He paused, breathing in the scent of her perfume, watching her neck work as she swallowed. With reluctance, he changed direction with the zipper, watching her shaky exhale.

“Yes,” he said, the word a murmur against her skin. “Of course, I’d forgotten.”

“Did you, now?” she asked, her golden eyes fixed on him as he finished doing up her dress. Her pupils were dilating, and he took her hand, pressing her knuckles to his lips.

“You make me quite forget I’m a gentleman at times, darling,” he assured her, his brows lifting in the most innocent way. “You have a way of teasing the bastard out of me.”

“Always,” she breathed, cupping his face. “But we have reservations tonight, and I know you don’t want to miss.”

“Of course.” He swallowed, leaning into the press of her palm. “I have something for you before we go.”

“For me?” she blinked at him, a rarity, and he nodded, reaching for the wrapped package.

“I thought it fitting,” he said. “We’re nearing the proper date, after all.”

“Ah,” she said, a wrinkle appearing between her brows as she took it from him. “I didn’t—”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “I just wanted to…mark the occasion.”

“The last couple of years had seemed…it didn’t feel right. It was too soon,” Crowley said softly.

Aziraphale nodded, brushing his fingers against the nape of her neck, feeling the sudden tension there. “We don’t have to make it a holiday, but I just…”

He lapsed into silence, his gaze far away. Crowley reached up, her dark red nails, carefully matched to her lipstick, tracing against the hand on her shoulder.

“There should be a marker,” he said. “For when our lives were truly allowed to begin.”

Her fingers clenched on his, and he turned his hand, squeezing back.

“Then it will be,” she said. “This year, we’ll wing it. Next year, we can decide to do something spectacular to mark it.”

He smiled at her in the mirror, watching her gaze linger on his, her face settled into seriousness.

“As you wish, my dear.” He rubbed his thumb against her knuckles. “Are you going to open what I got you?”

“Yes,” she said, the fingers of her opposite hand resting on the wrapped box. She retrieved the hand he was holding, with another fond squeeze, and set to unwrapping the paper. The box’s lid was plain and black, but she tipped it off, setting it to the side as she inhaled deep.

The necklace and earrings were old, though not as old as they were. Close, however. Late Hellenistic, the heavy braided gold chain was centered by a deep red garnet cabochon the size of his thumb. The earrings bore similar cabochons, though they were the size of his thumbnail. Clever in their design, they wrapped around the ear to showcase the gems against the delicate shell of Crowley’s ear.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, her fingers reaching out and caressing the chain. “Where did you find them?”

“There was a goldsmith I inspired in Kaimeros, in Rhodes,” Aziraphale said. “I told him of a beautiful woman I knew, with flashing white teeth and hair the color of the wine we drank. He made many such pieces after our conversations, but this was the first. He gifted it to me.”

“I didn’t know you spent time in Greece then,” Crowley said.

“Very briefly,” he said. “Just long enough to learn to appreciate you in a himation. It only took a moment. Quite fetching.”

She laughed. “Come on. We’ll be late if you dawdle and I don’t think a miracle will save our reservation this time.”

Her voice was infinitely, immeasurably fond. He had no idea how he hadn’t seen it sooner.

“Of course,” he said. Pressing one last kiss to the nape of her neck, he moved to see to his own attire.

* * *

Miraculously, they weren’t late. Aziraphale attributed it to a regal Crowley, wearing gold and garnets at her throat and ears, her arm tucked into the crook of his.

Then again, he might just be besotted.

He could live with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might be a bastard, but I'm a _soft_ bastard.
> 
> Aziraphale's gift is indeed [Hellentistic](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/hb/hb_1994.230.4-.6.jpg).


	32. Offering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __
>     
>     
>       _Too busy being yours to fall
>     (Sad to see you go)
>     Ever thought of calling darling?
>     (Do I wanna know)
>     Do you want me crawling back to you?_
>     
> 
> \- Arctic Monkeys, _Do I Wanna Know_
> 
> Aziraphale still smokes. Crowley does too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prevalenceofinsanity said:
> 
> One day, Aziraphale asks for a light as usual and instead of a flame on the tip of his finger, Crowley looks Aziraphale dead in the eye and drags his fingertip over the tip of the cigarette until it's smoldering
> 
> (Crowley turns away, not because he's So Cool but because that was about all the top energy he had to expend and he's trying very desperately to not show that he's about to hyperventilate from what he saw in Aziraphale's eyes as he pulled his little stunt)
> 
> (That, or Aziraphale just thanks him and smiles innocently and Crowley briefly weighs the pros and cons of the discorporation paperwork vs flinging himself off a cliff because the angel is so fucking CLUELESS)

**[December 1943]**

“So, we’re in agreement, then?” Aziraphale asked, staring out into the snowy night. Crowley watched the thick flakes of snow drift down into the water below. The St. Catherine’s lighthouse was abandoned, for now, her beam set dim and sweeping the ocean for her wayward sailors. Snow turned to grey slush as it hit the water, the cold making him tired in ways that were akin to drunkenness.

It was also one of the only safe places to meet these days.

“We are,” he said, his voice rusty in the darkness. “Operations will be set into effect to divert German attention from Normandy. They’ve got something big planned, but my man inside the ranks doesn’t know exactly what.”

“Neither do mine,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley could see perfectly well in the dark, the shadows no hindrance to the curve of the angel’s face. Aziraphale looked tired, bags beneath his eyes and his shoulders losing a hairsbreadth of their normally correct posture. His jaw was set in a firm line, much too firm for the round and cherubic face and even then, he seemed to have lost weight in the last two years.

Gone was the jaunty hat and attitude that had brought him into the church two years ago. Aziraphale looked exhausted. They both were, the war stretching them both thin—though Aziraphale bore the brunt of things, Crowley thought. He always seemed to, when these things happened.

“The war has to end,” Aziraphale said. “This is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

“Poitiers,” Crowley murmured.

“Not on this scale,” Aziraphale countered. “Not so many people. Not so many civilians. Not so much…cognitive dissonance between death and the ones that deal it. You couldn’t push a button at Poitiers and level a town and the surrounding countryside.”

Crowley had to concede that point. “Not even our wars were like this.”

“Frightful creations, humans,” Aziraphale said, the closest he’d ever come to denouncing God’s creation. “Capable of horrors beyond our knowing.”

“Capable of boundless grace, too,” Crowley said, turning his gaze out the window once more. “Just sometimes, you don’t know which way is which, for them.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale said.

Silence settled on the room once more, the cold seeping into Crowley’s bones, even through the layers of wool he’d bundled around his frame. It was the curse of being snake-like, perhaps. He’d never done well in cold; Heaven had been that same sterile chilliness that slithered up his spine now. His breath puffed in the air.

“Have you got a light, my dear boy?” Aziraphale said, after a long moment.

Crowley blinked, the motion surprised from him. He hadn’t carried a lighter for years, though he still smoked from time to time. Aziraphale held a cigarette tin, the fragrant tobacco making itself known in the air even before it had been sparked.

“I don’t,” Crowley said, his voice husky.

“Pity,” Aziraphale said, tapping one out and placing it between his lips regardless. “I’m sure I have a—”

Crowley leaned in, startling Aziraphale to stillness. In the darkness, it was easy to see the spark of red against the tip of the cigarette, the cherry brought to life by the gentle pass of Crowley’s index finger against the end. He swiped it once, twice, thrice, and the coal glowed a heavy orange-red, almost the color of hellfire as Aziraphale inhaled, taking a deep drag.

“Thank you,” he said, softly.

In the dull and bloody light of the lit cigarette, it was harder to see the angel’s face, read his eyes. Crowley leaned back, only to have the cigarette offered to him as Aziraphale let out a deep plume of smoke towards the ceiling. He took it, inhaling, the indirect press of the angel’s lips making heat run through his body as he gave it back, blowing his own plume of smoke above their heads.

Fragrant, the cloves reminded him vaguely of incense, heavy and spicy and promising something extraordinary if you were to burn them in a thurible. Crowley let smoke trickle from his nostrils, feeling rather blasphemous in the moment, outside of his perspective of being a demon in nature and form.

But then, he’d never been a Cassandra, to see the future. That was not his gift. His gift was questions, and seeing patterns, and following trends to their natural conclusions.

In the darkness of the lighthouse, all he saw was smoke, bluish-grey and sickly as it clouded above their heads like the fog of war.

They smoked in silence, passing it back and forth between them. When it was done, Aziraphale stubbed it on the brick wall, letting out a last breath of smoke as the spark died, leaving them in darkness once more.

“This war must end,” Aziraphale repeated.

Crowley nodded, cramming his hands in his overcoat’s pockets. “We’re in agreement.”

“We’ll talk soon,” Aziraphale said, and stepped out into the snowy night.

Crowley gave him an hour and then departed as well, shivering in the cold.

* * *

**[2019, a bus stop just outside of Tadfield proper]**

“Have you got a light, my dear boy?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley glanced over, watching Aziraphale pull out the same tin of cigarettes, which hadn’t the good sense to go stale since 1943. There were only a quarter of them missing, by Crowley’s estimation. Aziraphale plucked one from the tin, setting it between his lips.

Wearily, Crowley leaned over and pressed his index finger to the end, stroking once, twice, thrice. The coal was no less vibrant, no less hellish as Aziraphale inhaled. Aziraphale looked no less exhausted, either. That same slouch to his shoulders in 1943, that same stretched thin look. Crowley could relate; especially after the events of today.

If he lingered, he could blame being tired, filthy, and getting over grieving the imagined loss of the angel at his side.

Aziraphale inhaled, blowing the stream of smoke above their heads. He passed the cigarette to Crowley, who did the same, passing the angel the wine bottle in its stead.

“I’ll never understand why Hell is a no-smoking area,” Crowley muttered. “Makes no sense to stand about outside the gates like wankers.”

Aziraphale hummed. “Heaven, too. It’s not like it’s harming much.”

They smoked in silence for a while, the scent of cloves drifting between them. When the cigarette burnt down, Aziraphale lit a second from its lingering ember, then stubbed it.

“It reminds me of the offerings they used to burn,” he said after a moment. “Do you remember?”

“Mm,” Crowley said. “Sheep and goats and all manner of things, all to get Her attention.”

Aziraphale nodded. “It was simpler then.”

“Sometimes,” Crowley said. “More rules.”

Aziraphale seemed to think about that as Crowley took a hefty swig of the wine, the cheap red doing him the favor of wetting his throat after his drag on the cigarette and not much else.

“There aren’t any rules now, are there?” he asked softly. The delivery man had come and gone, the items he’d taken winging their way back, returned to sender.

“No,” Crowley said. “Expect it will be chaos in the ranks for a while now.”

“Bugger,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley glanced over as the angel cursed, watching him shake his fingers out, where the cigarette had burnt out against his well-manicured hand. There would have been glee at hearing the angel do something he so frowned upon, but Crowley was feeling far too tired and fragile to play his part at the moment.

“Do you mind—”

Crowley leaned over, lighting the new one with the same sensuous stroke of his fingers, his eyes on the angel’s face. Aziraphale’s gaze was heavy with something, flickering in the firelight that Crowley generated from his fingertip, dark with promise from a forgotten time, where humans crawled up mountains and set bonfires to turn the Almighty’s eyes to their plight.

A cigarette shared, a pipe, an offering. A binding. A promise.

An Arrangement.

A drumbeat started, somewhere, and Crowley distantly realized it was his heart, hammering against his ribs.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale said, letting the smoke halo his curly white-blond hair as he exhaled. Crowley accepted the cigarette, feeling the heavy taste of cloves cover his tongue, and wondered if Aziraphale tasted the same as he did, in this moment.

“They’ll come for us,” Aziraphale said.

“Of course,” Crowley said.

“Then we have an agreement,” Aziraphale said.

“We do,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale inhaled, letting the smoke drift towards the stars.

For a brief moment of stark clarity, Crowley saw the future, plain as day.

He was ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale smokes Guinea Gold cigarettes, here. I believe they were spiced with clove as well as tobacco, but I haven't been able to confirm. (Honestly, I just like the [tins](https://i.etsystatic.com/16755577/r/il/cd7182/1623436225/il_570xN.1623436225_ch9l.jpg), they're lovely.) The angel being one to hold onto his prized possessions more than Crowley, of course he kept a tin, and of course those cigarettes are still as fresh as the day he bought them. He expected them to be, of course.
> 
> Operation Fortitude began in December 1943. It was a foray into distracting the German forces away from the beaches at Normandy, in order to clear the way for the D-Day landing on the beach there in June 1944. Aziraphale took credit for moving the way forward in stopping the war. Crowley took credit for disrupting the war effort, and plausible deniablilty exists.
> 
> "My orders were, and I quote, to 'get up there and make some trouble'. You should have specified."
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	33. Obmutescence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions are awkward. Accidental confessions while talking to your best friend? The Worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Microprompts on tumblr:
> 
> tawghasa said:  
> 2\. This was a mistake

"Oh, no you don't!" Aziraphale lunged for Crowley, snagging his sleeve with plump, manicured fingers. Crowley tugged, but the angel wasn't to be denied. "You don't get to walk away, not after that!"

Crowley hissed in frustration, trying to pull away still. "No, let me go, this was a mistake!"

Aziraphale's grip was like iron. "Say it again."

"This was a mistake."

"Not _that_ , the other thing!" Aziraphale fixed him with an imperious glare. Crowley didn't quail, but he didn't stop trying to get away, either. "Say it again."

" ** _Fuck_** ," he snarled, running his free hand through his hair, making it stick up more wildly than before. "Fine, all right. I love you, you stupid, blessed angel. Have done."

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale said, his voice soft, still pulling on Crowley but coming to meet him, thumping against his chest with the solidity of the earth beneath Crowley's feet. He wrapped his arms around Crowley's middle, and damn him, Crowley melted into the touch, his fingers winding into Aziraphale's coat of their own accord. "You shouldn't be afraid of saying that."

"I should," he mumbled, his cheek pressed against Aziraphale's temple.

"Not anymore. Never again." Aziraphale pulled back, looking him in the face. "Our own side, remember? Together."

Crowley swallowed, nodding.

"And my dear, my _dearest_." Aziraphale reached up, cupping his face. "Never doubt that I love you, too."

Crowley, to his credit, felt his knees quake but remained upright. As it was, he sagged in the angel's hands a little.

"Say it again," he whispered.

"As many times as you need," Aziraphale said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obmutescence is the act of becoming mute or silent—usually a stubborn, willful act; if you are inclined to silence, you are obmutescent.
> 
> Trying to get my mojo back, I've been very tired and overworked the last couple of weeks. Hoping to recharge.


	34. Hiraeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Microprompts:
> 
> Anonymous said:  
> 31\. breeze

It wasn't often that Crowley allowed his wings to manifest themselves. Not without a good reason. But here, out on the cliffs of Durness, there was no one to see him. He had the whole place blessedly to himself; the tourist season wasn't due to start for another week, and the locals didn't often hike out this far.

Crowley, however, had long sought these hidden and remote places for his own, making them a sanctuary of sorts. Places he could leave natural and beautiful; deserts, islands, hidden rock caves on remote coasts. He didn't often feel old, but there were some days when the crush of humanity was too much and he needed to get away. He'd chosen sunset for a reason; the cover of night would shroud him from view.

Snakes were solitary creatures, mostly.

He spread his wings, the black feathers stretching toward the darkened night sky. The breeze off the sea gusted toward him, carrying the scent of salt and cold, and Crowley breathed in. He spread his arms, letting the breeze filter through his wings as he stretched them.

The seas were nearly as old as he, crashing about since the beginning, lashing the Earth as She raised it from the depths, coating the world. The cradle of life since time immemorial. He'd often taken sailing ships to where he needed to go, and there had been that century that he'd been a pirate, plundering overloaded merchant ships and generally making a nuisance of himself. He loved her then, he loved her now. She was free in ways he could never be, and it wasn't jealousy so much as a wistful sort of admiration.

They understood each other, he and the sea.

Slowly, he backed away from the cliff, only to take it at a run. Bolting forward, he leapt, his wings belling outward as he caught himself just before hitting the water below. His wings flapped, once, then twice, struggling to get stiff muscles moving, and he floundered, the sea a roar below him as it ate away at the rocks of the cliff.

Finally, though, he was airborne completely, salt spray out of his face and under him as he rose higher. It was inelegant, a mimicry of his time in Heaven, all but forgotten save in the deepest parts of his muscle memory. Blackened wings beat strong now, the feathers damp with flecks of foam.

Crowley gained altitude, flying higher and higher as he stretched himself toward the stars. He could see the pinpricks of light above, flickering brighter as he approached the troposphere and pulled away from the light pollution of earth.

He climbed higher, his wings aching as he tried harder, eyes fixed on the blackness above. He pushed through the stratosphere, feeling the cold about him. His teeth chattered, his eyes bright golden coins in his face as he reached up, his hands outstretched as he pushed his wings harder. Breathing was no longer an option, and he struggled upward, ever upward.

His fingers brushed the beginning of the mesosphere, feeling the change in the air, but that was all he got before he felt the pull of his hubris tugging him down. He slipped downward, gravity pulling him back to earth's embrace, where he started.

While he was reaching for the stars, it was the sea that welcomed him home, his body crashing into the waves as his parabola ended near to where it began. Not near as violent as his first time; while his Fall had been a vague Saunter, it had been a Fall all the same. This was a caress in comparison, the salt of the waves masking the wetness on his face. Crowley surfaced, his teeth still chattering, and started to swim for shore.

They could take the heavens from him. He had no choice in that. They couldn't stop him reaching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has a talent for self-flagellation, sometimes. Mostly that's probably me projecting. He's actually quite content on earth most days, but sometimes it just gets to be Too Much.
> 
> Hiraeth: homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, or for a home which may have never been; an intense form of longing or nostalgia, wistfulness; the grief for the lost places of your past


End file.
